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Above, from left: John Brodie, Jim Plunkett, Ken Stabler, Below: Charlie Conerly, Jim Hart.

The 2010 Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony is coming up soon, with 2 slam dunk picks for the hall, Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith, going in this season, among others. There is always a debate about players who belong in Canton who can’t seem to get in, and I’d like to highlight some of these players over the next few days, starting with quarterbacks today. The measuring stick for quarterbacks seems to be something that’s tough to get your arms around. Winning championships carries a lot of weight – that’s why Joe Montana, Otto Graham, Bob Griese and Terry Bradshaw are undisputed choices. Statistics count heavily also – Fran Tarkenton, Dan Marino, Sonny Jurgenson and Dan Fouts are examples of QBs getting in with big numbers but no titles. Using the “winning championships” argument, a case can be made for 2 former Oakland Raiders, Jim Plunkett and Ken Stabler. The Raiders being the bad boys of the NFL, and owner Al Davis constantly feuding with the league, seems to affect the Hall voting for one. Plunkett’s early-career perception of being a top draft choice bust while playing in New England works against him also, but he guided the Raiders to 2 Super Bowl titles and had a decent enough career after his Patriot debacle to warrant inclusion in the Hall. Stabler also had a reputation of being a rag-tag type of player in his time, but no one can dispute the winning he did while quarterbacking the Raiders. “The Snake” is a member of the NFL’s all-decade team for the 1970s, but isn’t good enough for the Hall? Two former New York Giants also fit this category. Charlie Conerly was a Giants’ mainstay in the late 1940s and 1950s, guiding the G-men to 3 NFL title games, beating the powerhouse Bears in 1956 to win it all. He was rookie of the year in 1948, league MVP in 1959 and a 2-time Pro Bowl selection, yet is not in Canton. Phil Simms was underappreciated his whole career, and this continues now as he has not gotten serious consideration by Hall voters either. Part of Simms’ problem is he was highly touted as a high draft choice and early in his career struggled to meet expectations. But once he figured it out, Simms was a key reason why New York won 2 Super Bowls (even though he was injured and didn’t play in one, he was instrumental in getting the team there). His career statistics are comparable to Griese’s, and he still holds the Super Bowl record for completion percentage. Frank Ryan, who quarterbacked the Browns in the 1960s, was a top signal-caller of that decade but lost a lot of playing time due to injuries. He led the Browns to the title game in 1964  and 1965, winning in ’64, but battled injury after that. He still compares statistically to Joe Namath, but lacks the flash and “legend” that Broadway Joe rode into Canton. Some forgotten players who had great careers but were stuck on losing teams include Ken Anderson, John Brodie, Jim Hart, John Hadl and Archie Manning. Anderson was the QB in Cincinnati when the Bengals offensive guru at the time, Bill Walsh, was tweaking Sid Gillman’s mad passing attack offense into what would become the “West Coast” offense, and rang up great numbers in that system. There is a groundswell of support for him and he may get in at some point. Brodie and Hart battled hard in the 1960s on mediocre teams in San Francisco and St. Louis respectively, and their lack of winning has worked against them. Hadl is an interesting case. Most of his work was done in anonimity in the American Football League, where he orchestrated Gillman’s wide open offense. Near the end of his career he had an MVP season with the L.A. Rams, leading them to a 12-2 season, and is a worthy HOF candidate, but it’s rare when players whose careers were mostly in the AFL get elected. Manning  had the bad luck of playing most of his career with an expansion team, the New Orleans Saints, and even though he is still appreciated and beloved in the Big Easy, he may only get to Canton to see his sons Peyton and Eli get inducted.

Famous football pep talks are a favorite subject of mine, and even though the famous Knute Rockne “Fight, fight, fight” speech is very inspiring, the ones I like best are the ones that are subtle. I guess if I were a player on a team, those are the kinds of speeches I would respond best to. Here are a few legendary but subtle football pep talks:

At halftime of a game in which his Notre Dame squad was playing poorly, Rockne never came into the locker room. His players sat there wondering what was going on, since the fabled coach was known for his halftime inspirational talks. Then, as the halftime was winding down, Rockne opened the locker room door, stuck his head in and said,  “OK. Half a minute left. Let’s go, girls!”

John Madden’s Oakland Raiders were about to take the field against their fierce division rivals, the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs had a horse named Warpaint that would ride around the field when the Chiefs scored, ridden by a guy dressed in Indian garb, pretty much the Chiefs’ mascot. Madden, in his typical hyper style, red-faced and with arms flailing, yelled out “Hey! Hey! I don’t wanna see that damn horse on the field once today!!” Now I would run through walls for a guy like that.

Paul Brown’s Cleveland Browns had just been brought into the NFL after being a dominant team in the old All-America Football Conference, and for their first game in the NFL the Browns were scheduled to face the reigning league champion Philadelphia Eagles, led by their superstar back Steve Van Buren. The pundits of the day spent the week before the game writing how the Eagles would roll over the upstart kids from “that minor league” and how Van Buren would show the new kids from Cleveland how the game was played. The Browns players were a little worried that Brown, usually a master motivator, seemed to be mostly silent the whole week prior to the game as everyone in the press, and some in the Eagles organization, laughed at the prospect of the Browns competing against the NFL champs and having any chance of slowing down their backfield sensation, Van Buren. Then, as the team was getting ready to take the field, Brown turned to his players and uttered these words: “Just think, men, in a minute you’ll get to touch the great Steve Van Buren.” Final score: Browns 35, Eagles 10.

Vince Lombardi was known for his line “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” He has actually been villified for that comment by some in society who feel that this philosophy goes too far, that it means to win at all costs and the hell with everything else. In today’s “everybody is special” society where people advocate not keeping score in sporting events and “every kid needs to receive a trophy”, Lombardi is considered somewhat of a villain. But those people don’t seem to understand that Lombardi was a great teacher of  not only the game but of life to his players. Many of his former players still say that decisions they made long after their playing careers were over were shaped by what Lombardi had taught them. Below is a short audio clip of a speech by Lombardi that is an example of his real philosophy, not just the one-line quote attributed to him. I think it’s pretty inspirational.

Unknown – Win Win Win