NEW : Championships aid Hall of Fame candidacy

I was in Canton, Ohio, last week for a seniors committee meeting of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and visited with a former player whose bust was on display in the building.

He studied the list of candidates under consideration by the seniors committee for the Class of 2010. It was littered with players from losing teams who had been passed over by the selection process.

Then he studied another list of the 260 players enshrined in Canton. He shook his head and said, "There really is a correlation here between these players and championships."


AP
The Green Bay Packers of the 1960s, who won five titles in a seven-year span from 1961-67, are the NFL's top dynasty, writes Rick Gosselin.
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The two players we selected as the senior nominees for 2010 were players whose careers had been tainted by team failure – Denver running back Floyd Little and Detroit cornerback Dick LeBeau. Neither played on a championship team. Neither even reached a championship game. Consequently, neither had ever been a finalist for the Hall of Fame.

Little, a five-time Pro Bowler and former NFL rushing champion, waited 34 years to become a finalist for the first time. LeBeau, who retired after the 1972 season third all-time in interceptions and still ranks in the NFL's Top 10, waited 37 years.

That got me to thinking. What is a championship worth to a player's Hall of Fame candidacy? Is there a way to quantify it?

So I started my research with the best team and the best dynasty I've ever seen. In both cases, it's the Green Bay Packers. In my book, the 1962 Packers are the best team and the 1960s Packers the best dynasty, winning five titles in a seven-year span from 1961-67.

The 1962 Packers featured a starting lineup with 10 future Hall of Famers. That seems excessive – even for a team as mighty as those Vince Lombardi Packers. But those 10 Packers from 1962 were also the only Packers enshrined in Canton from that decade. So while 10 may seem bountiful for one team, 10 sounds about right for a franchise that won five championships.

I've been a voter on both the selection committees of the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I think baseball enshrines too few players and football enshrines too many.

But using the 10/5 ratio of the 1960s Packers, I'm going to use two busts in Canton per championship team as my measuring stick. That not only sounds right it feels right. The Hall of Fame should not be the Hall of Good. It should be the Hall of Great.

That said, the most over-represented franchise in Canton is the Rams. Having won two championships, the Rams deserve four Hall of Famers by my measure. They have 10.

The Packers have 19 Hall of Famers, second only to the Chicago Bears. Surprisingly, Green Bay is under-represented in Canton. The Packers have won an NFL record 12 championships, which would entitle them to 24 Hall of Famers. They have only 19.

Both the Cowboys and 49ers are a tad under average. Both won five championships yet both have only nine Hall of Fame players in Canton. But both will reach their quota in 2010 when Jerry Rice becomes the 10th Hall of Famer for the 49ers and Emmitt Smith the 10th for the Cowboys.

Here's the breakdown by franchise of players enshrined in Canton. It lists the number of Hall of Famers, the number of championships and the ratio of Hall of Famers per titles:

Franchise HoF Titles Per title
Rams 10 2 5.0
Miami 8 2 4.0
Oakland 11 3 3.6
Kansas City 7 2* 3.5
Detroit 13 4 3.2
Cleveland 12 4 3.0
Buffalo 6 2** 3.0
Titans/Oilers 6 2** 3.0
Chicago 22 9 2.4
Pittsburgh 14 6 2.3
Washington 11 5 2.2
NY Giants 15 7 2.1
Colts 8 4 2.0
Philadelphia 6 3 2.0
Cowboys 9 5 1.8
San Francisco 9 5 1.8
Green Bay 19 12 1.5
Denver 2 2 1.0
New England 2 3 .6
Cardinals 9 1 x
San Diego 6 1* x
NY Jets 2 1 x
Baltimore Ravens 1 1 x
Tampa Bay 1 1 x
Minnesota 6 0 x
Cincinnati 1 0 x
Seattle 1 0 x
Atlanta 0 0 x
Carolina 0 0 x
Houston Texans 0 0 x
Jacksonville 0 0 x
New Orleans 0 0 x
*One AFL title **Two AFL titles

Schaub a big hit
Now, let's take a spin around the rest of the NFL. I'm off the road now until the start of the season. I was in Houston last weekend spending some time with the Texans and liked what I saw. I see the Texans in contention for a playoff spot this season and QB Matt Schaub in contention for a Pro Bowl spot.


AP
The NFL has fined players $90,000 for illegal hits on Texans quarterback Matt Schaub the last two seasons.
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Speaking of Schaub, the rap on him is that he's injury prone. He's missed five games in each of his two seasons as the starting quarterback of the Texans. He's lucky he hasn't missed more time, given the fact he has become the NFL's resident piñata.

The NFL has fined players $90,000 for illegal hits on Schaub the last two seasons:

•Then San Diego CB Drayton Florence $15,000 for a blind-side hit on Schaub in 2007 following an interception;

•Minnesota DE Jared Allen $50,000 for two hits on Schaub at the knees in a 2008 game;

•Tennessee CB Cortland Finnegan $25,000 for two separates hits on Schaub in another 2008 game, one helmet-to-helmet and the other spearing. Both drew penalty flags.

Under the big top
Brett Favre has been one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play in the great outdoors, setting NFL records for passing yards and touchdowns.

Favre moves indoors this season for the first time in his 19-year career as the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings. But he hasn't fared as well in the air-conditioned comfort of domes as he has the chill of Green Bay.

Favre holds the NFL record for starting quarterbacks with 169 career victories. He is 146-75 outdoors for a winning percentage of .661. Indoors, it's a different story. Favre is 23-25 in his career in domes. He was sacked seven times in a 1996 loss at the Metrodome to the Vikings, he threw six interceptions in a 2001 loss at the Edward Jones Dome to the Rams and generated only three points in a humbling 17-3 loss at Ford Field to the lowly Lions in 2005.

At the Metrodome, Favre is 6-10 in his career. But he's 5-3 in Minneapolis this decade after a disastrous 1-7 showing there in the 1990s.

Here's a look at Favre's career:

Category Games Comp Att % Yards TD INT Rate W-L
Career 273 5,720 9,280 61.6 65,127 464 310 85.4 169-100
Metrodome 16 351 550 63.8 3,792 24 18 84.9 6-10
All domes 48 1,107 1,742 63.5 12,483 87 64 86.2 23-25
Stat of the week
4-0 – Seven NFL teams head into their pre-season finales this weekend with 3-0 records: Baltimore, Green Bay, Miami, Minnesota, New Orleans, San Francisco and Seattle. Miami plays New Orleans, so there can be a maximum of six teams that finish the pre-season with perfect records. Only once in the last 25 years has there been as many as four teams with perfect preseasons – in 2003 when Arizona, Carolina, New England and Tennessee – much less six.

Book review
Nothing Comes Easy, by Y.A. Tittle and Kristine Setting Clark. I picked this one up because I wanted to learn more about one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to come out of Texas. Tittle never won a championship but it didn't keep him out of the Hall of Fame.


AP
The name Y.A. Tittle ususally conjures up this famous image. But Tittle was the first quarterback in NFL history with back-to-back 30-touchdown seasons in 1962-63.
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The Marshall product spent three years in the old American Football Conference before embarking on his NFL career in 1951, spending 14 seasons with the 49ers and Giants. He became the first quarterback in NFL history with back-to-back 30-touchdown seasons in 1962-63 and was the league MVP in 1963.

His best anecdote was when Texas tried to recruit Tittle after he had already committed to LSU. The Longhorns spirited Tittle off to Austin a few weeks before classes were to begin that fall and stashed him in a rooming house off campus with other recruits.

The freshman in the next room was Bobby Layne and the two quarterbacks developed a strong, competitive bond that summer that lasted throughout their pro careers. Tittle returned to LSU before the start of the season, never enrolling at Texas.

"I often wondered what would have happened if I had stayed at Texas in the summer of '44," Tittle wrote in the book. "Maybe pro football would have never heard of me...or perhaps Bobby Layne's career would have been altered. Maybe we would have eliminated each other with our competitiveness – who knows?"

DVD review
Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29: This DVD revisits the 1968 game between the Ivy League schools – the first time the two met with perfect records since 1909. Yale, with quarterback Brian Dowling and halfback Calvin Hill, ranked 16th in the nation and was the heavy favorite. But Harvard rallied from a 29-13 deficit with 16 points in the final minute for the tie.

Actor Tommy Lee Jones was a guard on the Harvard team and Dowling became the character spoofed as "B.D." in the comic strip Doonesbury. Kevin Rafferty was the writer, director and cameraman of the film.

The video goes through the entire game almost play by play with comments from the principal players of each play. It also tells the tale of two campuses during the Vietnam era, pitting the white-collar Elis against the blue-collar Crimson. The game and comeback were fascinating enough. The story behind the game was even more fascinating.

Two-minute drill
• The Baltimore Ravens did not re-sign 41-year-old placekicker Matt Stover in the off-season, deciding to let youngsters Steven Hauschka and Graham Gano battle it out in training camp for his job. Gano has missed a 28-yarder this pre-season and Hauschka a 27-yarder – so Stover's phone number remains on speed dial of Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome. "Not having Stover here is a lot like not having Ray [Lewis] here or Jonathan [Ogden]," Newsome said. "He's always been money in the bank for us."

• I can see the Houston Texans keeping four tight ends this season, with draft picks James Casey and Anthony Hill joining holdovers Owen Daniels and Joel Dressen. The Texans have a fifth tight end in their back pocket in Connor Barwin. He caught 31 passes at the University of Cincinnati as a junior tight end in 2007, then moved to defensive end in 2008 where he led the Big East with 12 sacks. No one can stack 'em five deep at tight end like the Texans.

• Attention fantasy footballers: don't get too excited about San Francisco rookie Glenn Coffee leading the NFL in rushing in the preseason. Washington's Marcus Mason led the NFL in rushing last preseason but the Redskins didn't even break camp with him, releasing him in the final roster cut to 53. Mason spent time on the practice rosters of the Ravens and Jets but did not touch the ball a single time in the 2008 regular season.

• With the retirement of LB Tedy Bruschi this week, only two players remain from New England teams that started all four Super Bowls this decade – QB Tom Brady and OT Matt Light.

• The Eagles have quietly been shopping veteran wide receivers Reggie Brown and Hank Baskett this summer.

Final thought
All the noise in the NFC North this summer has been generated by the quarterbacking acquisitions of Brett Favre by the Minnesota Vikings and Jay Cutler by the Chicago Bears. But don't be surprised if Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers wind up winning the division.

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