Looking Ahead to the 2011 Football Hall of Fame

First, congratulations are in order for Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith, and the other newly inducted members of the 2010 class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. These men all deserve the honor and have everything to be proud of. That having been said, as we look ahead to the 2011 Hall of Fame class, there is one athlete who, probably more than any of the other men who will be on the ballot for the first time, is a lock for induction. Unfortunately, he could also just as easily be passed over for induction because he was too good for his own good. That man is the player known as "Prime Time", former Falcon, 49er, Cowboy, Raven & Redskin, Deion Sanders.

Leading into the recently concluded Super Bowl, much of the talk regarding the New Orleans Saints´ defense surrounded cornerback Darren Sharper, "the best cover corner in the league". Experts discussed how, with his nine interceptions, he was the most feared cover man in the game. The same had also been said in the past about the Oakland Raiders´ Nnamdi Asomugha, who has averaged only one interception per season for the past three years, but leads the NFL with the least number of passes thrown in his direction for the entire season with 27, only thirteen of those having been completions. A description of Deion Sanders places him in the same company as Asomugha, a territory that Sharper is almost certainly soon to visit, because as Sanders and Asomugha have found out, all it takes is one dominant season of interceptions to convince quarterbacks to stop throwing in your direction.

The NFL is a stat-driven league, just like the other three major sports. Induction into their Halls of Fame are usually decided based on a statistical analysis of the player´s career in comparison to other players at their position, in their era, and how their stats convert into wins and losses. Michael Irvin´s 750 receptions earned for him a place in the Hall while Tim Brown´s & Cris Carter´s eleven-hundred receptions have thus far not deemed them as worthy for induction. Deion Sanders´ 53 career interceptions, the only stat that a cornerback can truly call their own; rank him in a tie for 22nd place with Ty Law, but behind such luminaries as Eric Allen, Everson Walls, Dick LeBeau & Ken Riley, none of whom are in the Hall of Fame.

During his playing days, Deion Sanders was the consummate cover corner, and the most feared defensive player in the league. However, in a stat-driven league, he did not compile the awe-inspiring numbers that would have guaranteed induction like the career stats of Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith. Deion was avoided the way that Asomugha is today, and as a result, was never able to pile up interceptions the way that Sharper did this season. Without those numbers, some voters might feel as if Sanders was not the great player that announcers and coaches lauded him as being. The same voters who denied Tim Brown in the most recent Hall of Fame voting, have been denying Cris Carter for the past few years, and who denied Art Monk until it was almost too late, might also not feel as if Sanders is worthy.

Hall of Fame voters tend to like to apply criteria to their selection that goes beyond the answer to the very simple question of whether or not the player was among the best ever at his position and among the best players of his era. Tim Brown was. Cris Carter was. Ken Riley was. Ray Guy was and Deion Sanders was as well. There is no reason why Deion Sanders should not be a unanimous first ballot Hall of Fame selection, but 28 voters felt that Rickey Henderson, the greatest lead-off hitter and base stealer in Major League Baseball history, did not deserve to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first try, and Rickey had outstanding baseball numbers. Deion does not have "outstanding" numbers and that might actually be a hindrance to his campaign more than it should serve as a testament to the respect that the league paid to his ability to be a game changer on every play. Deion Sanders was so good that quarterbacks did not throw in his direction. Without being challenged, Deion was not able to capture the interceptions that other cornerbacks did, and while this should be indicative of his greatness, it might also be a detriment to his Hall of Fame candidacy.