09-29-2024, 12:41 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-30-2024, 09:52 AM by ProdigalSon. Edited 1 time in total.)
I've got a couple very intriguing ballots to go over; I mostly agree with 1 ballot, but I see some names on the 2nd ballot that mean I'm likely to have some very negative things to say in the back half. This part will cover the S31 and S32 ballots.
ALEX DASISTWIRKLICHSEINNACHNAME
User: @BigKicks
OCO (S15 - S27)
K/P
Unanimous Inductee? YES
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3x Ultimus Champion (S17, S18, S19)
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AWARDS
2x Punter of the Year (S17, S26)
2x Kicker of the Year (S19, S21)
7x Pro Bowler (S16, S17, S18, S19, S21, S22, S26)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#3 Career K XPM (517.00)
#2 Career K XPA (545.00)
#4 Career P Punts (968.00)
#3 Career P Yds (45530.00)
#15 Career P Avg (47.04)
#16 Career P Lng (76.00)
#2 Career K FGM (346.00)
#2 Career K FGA (374.00)
#3 Career K FGPct (0.93)
#2 Career Points (1555.00)
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SEASON RECORDS
#21 Season P Lng (S19 - 76.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S22 - 1.00)
#13 Season K FGM (S24 - 36.00)
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GAME RECORDS
#25 Game K XPM (S16W3 - 7.00)
#25 Game K XPM (S21W4 - 7.00)
#5 Game P In20Rate (S23W15 - 1.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S16W11 - 5.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S18W6 - 5.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S22W6 - 5.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S24W9 - 5.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S25W9 - 5.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#1 Career P Punts (113.00)
#1 Career P Yds (5256.00)
#11 Career P Avg (46.51)
#20 Career P Lng (67.00)
#8 Career P Inside 20 (19.00)
#25 Career P In20Rate (0.17)
#10 Career Points (98.00)
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POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#6 Season P Punts (S18 - 19.00)
#19 Season P Punts (S17 - 16.00)
#4 Season P Yds (S18 - 924.00)
#23 Season P Yds (S17 - 730.00)
#20 Season P Avg (S18 - 48.63)
#25 Season P Lng (S17 - 67.00)
#25 Season P Lng (S20 - 67.00)
#24 Season P Inside 20 (S18 - 4.00)
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POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#3 Game K XPM (S22W15 - 6.00)
#6 Game K XPA (S22W15 - 6.00)
#11 Game K XPA (S17W15 - 5.00)
#2 Game P Punts (S16W15 - 13.00)
#11 Game P Punts (S18W15 - 10.00)
#11 Game P Punts (S20W14 - 10.00)
#5 Game P Yds (S16W15 - 567.00)
#16 Game P Yds (S20W14 - 477.00)
#21 Game P Yds (S18W15 - 465.00)
#24 Game P Yds (S18W16 - 459.00)
Overall Statistics: 517/545 XP, 94.86%; 346/374 FG, 92.51%
45,530 punt yards, 47.04 avg, 18.4% in20 rate
After a part 7 where I came away from it only liking a single player more than the league did at the time, we're back into the all time greats. Alex D, which is what I will be calling this player from here on out (he gets one full spelling of his name per media piece) is the only player as far as I'm aware of, who is both an inner circle all time great Punter and Kicker. Before I dive deeper, let's go year by year, because in covering someone else I already saw one award that I'd give him over Kulture Fulture.
Alex's rookie S15 season was mediocre, which is better than you'd expect. He was a below average punter and an average kicker on the whole. S16, on the other hand, was the year I was looking at; I think Alex this year was a better kicker than Kulture Fulture, due to higher percentages and a similar level of kick difficulty. With a few more punts inside the 20, Alex this year might have deserved to sweep the awards; as is I'd give him KotY. S17 was Alex's first award in reality, as well as being a decent kicking season. His punting this season was undeniable, leading the league by multiple yards and managing a respectable for the time 14.3 percent of punts inside the 20. S18 was a year where he was the 2nd best punter and kicker in the league, but was held up from both awards by the best season of Kulture Fulture's career.
S19 saw Alex get his first KotY award in reality, 3 seasons after I think he should have received his first one. It wasn't a great year from him; he only had to take 4 kicks from 40 or more, and he missed one of them. There's an argument that Fulture should have won this award instead, but I think I'd give it to Alex by a hair. S20 saw Alex have one of his 3 seasons with under 90% FGs, and while his punting was great, Crisco put up a season with 49.98 yards per punt on average which mattered more than him having 13.3% punts inside the 20 compared to Alex having 46.86 and 17.9%. This was the first season he missed the Pro Bowl since his rookie year.
S21, on the other hand, saw Alex win his 2nd KotY award, and was the Pro Bowler for the ASFC in punting, too. He has an argument to sweep the awards, here: Venus Powers had 46.6 yards per punt to Alex's 48.2, Alex had a 20.3% punts inside the 20 to Powers' 22.6%. It's close and there's good arguments for both, that I'm guessing nobody realized because Powers punted 19 times more than Alex and thus blew everyone else out of the water with 21 punts inside the 20. S22 wasn't as good, but he was still the best kicker in his conference even as his punting fell completely off a cliff (7.4%? REALLY?). This would be Alex's last pro bowl for a while. S23 was his 2nd season under 90% on field goals, and he was one of the worst punters in the league. S24 was good except for the fact that he was under 90% on extra points; it took an all time great season from one of the few players who was a better punter than him to block Alex from the Pro Bowl on punting; his own season was excellent.
S25 was an amazing season from Alex kicking, which still managed to only be the 3rd best season in the conference; it's not often that a 96.4% FG season is only the 4th best on the year. It was also an amazing season from Alex Punting, this time without any caveats. Alex was 2nd in the entire league in punt average, and was 2nd in punts inside the 20. There are 3 people to keep in mind here: the winner of the PotY award, the person who competes with Alex (in the other conference, so either way Alex deserves the Pro Bowl), and Alex. The winner of the PotY, Dougie Smalls, had 47.23 yards per punt, and 20.4% punts inside the 20. Good year. Jacob Small managed a gargantuan 25.8% of punts inside the 20, but only managed a 45.98 yards per punt. Alex had 47.25 yards per punt and 22.0% of punts inside the 20. Needless to say, Alex at bare minimum deserved a Pro Bowl spot, and he has an argument for the PotY award. S26 was Alex's actual 2nd Punter of the Year award, as he managed a 47.98 yards per punt and a ridiculous 26.1% of punts inside the 20. The only player with a decent argument to be better had 49.26 yards per punt but only 17.0% of punts inside the 20. S27 wasn't a particularly good swan song season but Alex had punched his ticket to the Hall long beforehand.
Overall, Alex should have the 2nd most awards of any kicker/punter as far as I can tell, with 3 KotY awards and 2 PotY awards, plus 2 other PotY awards he has at least an argument for. By my count he should have had 10 total Pro Bowls, making the Pro Bowl in 8 out of 13 seasons and sweeping the Pro Bowls twice. And his awards are the less impressive part of his legacy in my eyes. Going from area to area, Alex has a single location where he's a bad kicker: Extra Points. And while he's a really bad kicker here, the 2nd worst in the Hall and currently 80th out of 92nd, these are all 1/3rd the importance of field goals. And Alex is the single best Field Goal kicker in league history, with his only competition playing 5 seasons and not having to deal with years deep in regression where he would have been a bad kicker. Alex is completely perfect on kicks under 30 yards out, and on kicks from 30-39 he's nearly perfect: he has the highest percentage among Hall of Fame kickers and in and of himself he's 8th at 97.6%. He's slightly worse on kicks from 40-49 yards, ranking T-19th at 83.8% (tied with Kulture Fulture ironically) but he's still well above the median Hall of Famer and the only better Hall of Famers are Dean Jackson and Micycle McCormick. From 50+, Alex is 20th with 70.8%, which stilll ranks 4th out of 9 Hall of Fame kickers; the only better kickers (Smalls, Fencik, and Powers) have multiple ranges where they're notably worse than Alex.
Alex is also arguably the greatest Punter of all time; he's 3rd of the 5 players who spent most of their time in the Old Sim by punt distance (and one of the higher players was McCormick) and he has the single highest ratio of punts inside the 20 of all of them, by 2.5%. The only players who have an argument to be better are Dean Jackson (lower ratio of punts inside the 20, higher average) a player who straddled the line between old and new sim punter, and a bunch of players punting in the significantly more advantageous new sim. When I did a breakdown of every notable kicker/punter a little over a full year ago, there was a single player who managed to be in the S or A tier in both punting and kicking (who wasn't McCormick with only a 5 year career) and that was Alex D. Only 3 other people managed to be both a B tier or higher Punter and Kicker. And Alex D was the only person other than McCormick who I put as the S tier kicker.
NERO ALEXANDER
User: @shadyshoelace
YKW (S15 - S27)
DE
Unanimous Inductee? NO
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2x Ultimus Champion (S23, S26)
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AWARDS
1x Defensive Lineman of the Year (S17)
1x Defensive End of the Year (S25)
5x Pro Bowler (S16, S17, S18, S20, S25)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#1 Career DEF TFL (141.00)
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SEASON RECORDS
#3 Season DEF TFL (S25 - 23.00)
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GAME RECORDS
#4 Game DEF TFL (S17W5 - 5.00)
#22 Game DEF TFL (S25W5 - 4.00)
#22 Game DEF TFL (S25W11 - 4.00)
#11 Game DEF FF (S23W6 - 2.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#5 Career DEF TFL (10.00)
#17 Career DEF FF (2.00)
#7 Career DEF FR (2.00)
#1 Career DEF Blk FG (1.00)
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POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#22 Season DEF TFL (S21 - 3.00)
Overall Statistics: 563 tackles, 141 TFLs, 58 sacks, 10 FFs, 4 FRs
Among DEs, Alexander played 169 games and is only truly excellent at the less important stats in my mind: he's 4th in tackles, 1st in tackles for loss (by a kind of insane 24), a bad T-32nd in sacks, T-25th in FFs, T-34th in FRs. Thankfully, less important doesn't mean not important. Nero only had a single season where he reached double digit sacks, but he did reach double digit TFLs for over half of his career.
Going year by year, Nero's rookie season was bad; 6 TFLs and 3 sacks meant that he was one of the worse DEs in the league. His sophomore year was much better, with 10 TFLs, 6 sacks, and a forced fumble. Only 3 DEs were definitely better and as such this was an easy Pro Bowl. S17 was his DLotY award, and it's the first time this part that I'm going to come right out and say that a Hall of Famer didn't deserve an award they received. Sacks are a little under twice as important as TFLs, and as such when Nero Alexander managed 16 TFLs and 3 sacks, this actually wasn't even a top 2 DE season; Kuusela managed 15 sacks and a safety, and Marc Spector II managed 9 TFLs, 7 sacks, a FF, and a safety. I can easily say both of those are better, as well as at least one if not two separate DT seasons. Far from winning DLotY, this wasn't even a 1st team All Pro season at DE! It was at least Pro Bowl worthy, though.
S18 was yet another Pro Bowl season from Nero, but it's honestly not all that good; 9 TFLs, 4 sacks, 1 FF, 27 tackles, at least 6 better DEs if not more this season. This was a lower down Pro Bowl from Nero, and is really close to me just considering it a bad berth. S19 saw 10 TFLs but 2 sacks, and a double digit number of better DEs that season. S20 was a return to the Pro Bowl for Nero, with 12 TFLs, 3 sacks, and 1/2 FF/FRs; I think he was the 4th best DE this season and an easy Pro Bowler. S21 was a bad season, on the other hand, even with 2 forced fumbles as Nero was unable to manage more than 7 TFLs and a single sack. There were yet again a double digit number of better DEs on the season.
S22 was a non-Pro Bowl season from Alexander, but it was actually the best season of his career up until this point, with 13 TFLs, 5 sacks, and 2 FFs. I think he actually deserved to make the Pro Bowl here, with only 5 or 6 better DEs. Unfortunately, 4 of those were in the NSFC, so Alexander ended up missing out due to how skewed things were. Incredibly, S23 was an even better season, with 6 more tackles, 3 more TFLs and a recovered fumble on top of his already great S22. He absolutely should have made the Pro Bowl this year, with only 3 better DEs in the entire league by my quick analysis. S24 was arguably Alexander's best season yet, with 10 sacks for the first time in his career, albeit only 9 TFLs and no FF/FRs. By my count, there's 4 definitely better DEs, 2 DEs that look like LBs with a ton more tackles and PDs than would possibly be expected than otherwise, and maybe a couple others who might have an argument. I think Nero was the 3rd or 4th best DE in his conference and thus deserved to make the Pro Bowl this season.
S25 was Alexander's DEotY season, and this time it was absolutely deserved. 7 sacks, a massive 23 TFLs, and a forced fumble as a cherry on top. Best DE season easily, there's not really anyone even close. S26 was another nice season from Alexander, though it barely missed the Pro Bowl: 9 TFLs and 7 sacks. There were about 7 or 8 better DEs this season, so this just barely missed the Pro Bowl. S27 was not a great season, with only 2 sacks and 1 TFL.
Overall, I think Alexander ends up being...about the same in terms of awards. I don't think he deserved the DLotY in S17, but he deserved to make the Pro Bowl in S22 and just got unlucky, and just flat out deserved the Pro Bowl in S23. He even arguably deserved a Pro Bowl in S26, albeit a low down one. That's 1 DEotY award, but 7 or 8 Pro Bowls. Considering his not all time great but still excellent stats, Nero is still one of the greatest DEs of all time, though he's definitely not the greatest DE from the Wraiths. That's only because the Wraiths have a stranglehold over the greatest DEs which is only outmatched by a couple other teams' strangleholds over positions, such as the Otters over the greatest QBs, or the Outlaws over the greatest RBs, or funnily enough the Wraiths over the greatest CBs.
FORREST GUMP
User: @TomHanks
NOLA (S16 - S27)
RB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
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1x Ultimus Champion (S21)
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AWARDS
1x Running Back of the Year (S18)
1x Performance of the Year (S18)
1x Offensive Player of the Year (S18)
2x Returner of the Year (S19, S20)
7x Pro Bowler (S16, S17, S18, S19, S20, S21, S22)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#13 Career Rush Att (2497.00)
#13 Career Rush Yds (10504.00)
#22 Career ST PRYds (1651.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#5 Career ST PR_TD (5.00)
#21 Career ST PR (185.00)
#12 Career AllPurpose Yds (21205.00)
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SEASON RECORDS
#1 Season ST KRLng (S20 - 108.00)
#18 Season ST KR_TD (S20 - 1.00)
#4 Season ST PR_TD (S19 - 2.00)
#4 Season ST PR_TD (S21 - 2.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S20 - 1.00)
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GAME RECORDS
#1 Game ST KRLng (S20W1 - 108.00)
#12 Game Scrimmage Yds (S18W2 - 248.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#9 Career Rush Att (203.00)
#7 Career Rush Yds (926.00)
#7 Career Rush TD (7.00)
#10 Career ST KR (22.00)
#10 Career ST KRYds (653.00)
#7 Career ST PRYds (192.00)
#25 Career ST KRLng (48.00)
#23 Career ST PRLng (21.00)
#3 Career ST PR (24.00)
#4 Career AllPurpose Yds (2179.00)
#5 Career Scrimmage Yds (1334.00)
#22 Career Points (66.00)
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POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#7 Season Rush Att (S21 - 64.00)
#3 Season Rush Yds (S21 - 299.00)
#18 Season ST KR (S19 - 7.00)
#19 Season ST KRYds (S21 - 197.00)
#21 Season ST PRYds (S21 - 75.00)
#7 Season ST PR (S20 - 9.00)
#7 Season ST PR (S21 - 9.00)
#1 Season AllPurpose Yds (S21 - 745.00)
#1 Season Scrimmage Yds (S21 - 473.00)
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POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#12 Game Rush TD (S24W17 - 2.00)
#10 Game Rec Avg (S21W16 - 39.67)
#5 Game ST PR (S20W14 - 6.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S21W16 - 4.00)
#12 Game ST KRAvg (S21W14 - 47.00)
#4 Game AllPurpose Yds (S21W16 - 297.00)
#18 Game AllPurpose Yds (S22W14 - 262.00)
#2 Game Scrimmage Yds (S21W16 - 221.00)
Overall Statistics: 10,504 rushing yards, 4.21 ypc, 70 rush TDs
409 receptions, 3,681 receiving yards, 25 receiving TDs
Gump has pretty average stats for a Hall of Fame RB from the old sim; both in terms of yards and efficiency he's near the middle of the pack. Overall, Gump has the 13th most carries, the 16th most yards, the T-37th most TDs, and the 104th highest yards per carry; among old sim HOF RBs he ranks 4th of 10 (or 11 if you count Boss Tweed and his 3.55 yards per carry as a Hall of Fame RB, as opposed to a tumor on a Hall of Fame LB's career). Decent stats, minus a strangely low TD total that was well short of average for a Hall of Famer. As far as passing is concerned, he's actually above average for Old Sim Hall of Fame RBs; 4th in yards, 2nd in touchdowns.
Gump didn't start out as the best RB in the league or anything, but he was one of the best in his rookie S16 season, with 4.20 yards per carry, 8 touchdowns, and just under 1100 rushing yards; I think overall I'd rank him 3rd behind Marquise Brown and Sam Torenson, though he does have an argument to be better than Torenson (similar rushing efficiency, but Torenson was a completely awful receiver and while Gump wasn't good, he did have some production in that category). Easy Pro Bowl, flirts with 1st Team. S17 was not quite as good, he got 10 touchdowns but slightly less yards and only managed a 4.01 ypc. There were 4 definitely better RBs, and a trio of other RBs who have varying levels of claims to be better (all of which I at least somewhat agree with), but Gump managed to maintain the luck of the draw, and deserved his Pro Bowl spot because only 2 RBs of those 7 were in the ASFC.
S18 immediately makes me start to ponder things, such as: Does Gump deserve the Pro Bowl for this season? There's no way he deserved the RBotY or the OPOY he actually got; this was a season with a 4.05 ypc that only won any awards because it led the league by over 100 yards rushing (1380, over 100 yards per game) and had 11 touchdowns (2nd to another player with 14 TDs but also only 4 ypc). What do you guys think is more important, 400 yards and 4 touchdowns? Or being nearly half a yard better per carry? Because for me, it's no contest; Slim Shady's 4.53 season with just under 1000 yards and 7 TDs was definitely better than Gump. Overall, this was arguably the 3rd best RB season this year (I also like Torenson having 110 less yards, 3 less touchdowns, but being 0.2 ypc better), in an all around bad season for RBs. It's not even like Gump had an amazing receiving year to make up for being only 4 yards per carry; was S16-20 just the ISFL equivalent of the era where Baseball voters got attached to wins, saves, and RBIs? Because it feels like I've complained significantly more about the major awards in this time period than before, and hopefully since. Overall, Gump deserves the Pro Bowl this season, but despite this being his his highest volume total, I'd still say it's a below average season from his opening 7 seasons that all made the Pro Bowl.
S19, for example, was a significantly better season in my mind, with 1200 yards, 8 TDs, and 4.48 ypc. Ironically enough, this is a year where I think Gump might have been a better RB than the actual winner of RBotY and the OPOY, though I do like this Ludicolo Bigby season more than Gump's S18. The biggest argument against Gump was probably that Marcella Toriki in the same backfield managed 1000 yards, 7 touchdowns, and was seemingly two tenths of a yard better per carry, though she actually only had a 4.55. I think Gump was either the best or 2nd best RB in the league this season, maybe 3rd if you really stretch, but I think I'd have him 2nd, mainly because Bigby was too efficient on the receiving end compared to Gump. Still an easy Pro Bowl. S20 saw Gump be the 2nd best RB on the season, behind someone who will be covered later on in this part, with 950 yards, 4.16 ypc, and 10 touchdowns. Just a Pro Bowl back then, but this would be the 2nd straight year where I'd call him a 1st team All Pro.
S21 was a similar season to S19, except arguably worse: Forrest Gump managed 1000 yards, 4.46 ypc, and 7 touchdowns, which would overall be the 3rd best RB on the season, except for the fact that he shared the backfield with Marcella Toriki, who managed just under 900 yards, 7 touchdowns, and most notably 4.75 ypc. If Toriki being more slightly more efficient than Gump helped sink Gump out of RBotY talks, this season, where she was significantly more efficient, might knock Gump out of the equivalent of a 2nd team All Pro slot. It still wouldn't keep him out of the Pro Bowl though. S22 was Gump's final Pro Bowl, and the most efficient season of his career: 4.60 ypc, 1100 yards, only 4 touchdowns, but that wasn't enough to keep Gump from being the 4th best RB on the season.
That was the last season where Gump was the primary RB in the NOLA backfield; funnily enough, he spent S23 ruining any chance that Toriki was a good RB by being half a yard better per carry; Gump led the entire RB position in yards per carry with 4.48 ypc, though with only 900 yards and 4 TDs Gump did not manage a Pro Bowl; I might actually argue that he deserved to make one, though. S24 and S25 were bad seasons as RB2, with under 3.9 ypc and under 800 yards, and S26 and S27 were both nonseasons as the RB3 in NOLA's backfield.
I have called Gump the Frank Gore of the ISFL in the past, though I believe Frank Gore should easily waltz into the Hall of Fame in the NFL so I don't really mean that as an insult. Gump never really had a season where he was truly excellent compared to the rest of the field; he maybe has a season where he could have been the best RB, but I don't think I would argue he was actually the best, he had a couple seasons where he'd make a 1st team All Pro as the 2nd best RB, and he made 7 straight Pro Bowls to begin his career, none of which were undeserved, and only started missing the Pro Bowl when he got moved to the 2nd spot in the NOLA backfield. He even had an argument to make it in his first season as an RB2. Despite having a RBotY (and an OPOY) where I don't have him as the best RB (and I'd argue not even 2nd best), Gump still waltzes into the Hall in my book. That being said, this is a particular ballot where I can definitely say Gump was not the best player at his position on the ballot, despite receiving more votes than the other guy.
QUENTON BODE
User: @terriblehippo
NOLA (S15 - S27)
LB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
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1x Ultimus Champion (S21)
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AWARDS
4x Pro Bowler (S18, S19, S20, S23)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#2 Career DEF Tck (1441.00)
#22 Career DEF Blk P (1.00)
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SEASON RECORDS
#2 Season DEF Tck (S23 - 154.00)
#5 Season DEF Tck (S25 - 153.00)
#3 Season DEF Blk P (S26 - 1.00)
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GAME RECORDS
#19 Game DEF Tck (S17W13 - 16.00)
#19 Game DEF Tck (S22W5 - 16.00)
#19 Game DEF Tck (S25W15 - 16.00)
#11 Game DEF FF (S22W5 - 2.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#13 Career DEF Tck (88.00)
#7 Career DEF FF (3.00)
Overall Statistics: 1,441 tackles, 23 TFLs, 39 sacks, 60 PDs, 8 INTs, 19 FFs, 11 FRs
Behold my field of stats other than tackles and see that it is barren. Bode is basically the exact player I was thinking about when I said that I'm not the biggest fan of people who were great tacklers but did absolutely nothing else. Bode in particular is 2nd all time in tackles, but among LBs ranks T-118 in TFLs, T-124 in sacks, T-94th in PDs, T-61st in INTs, T-44th in FFs, and T-31st in FRs. Considering literally only one LB ever had more opportunities to get more FFs I'm not all that impressed by those totals, and that trio of Sack/TFL/PD stat is particularly catastrophic in my view. So far, the other people who didn't have a ton of sacks or TFLs at LB managed to be great at PDs; O'Sullivan is 5th, Selich is T-6th, Roenick is T-29th, even Brian Mills is T-49th, and all of them ALSO have more sacks. This might be the single worst set of volume stats in the entire Hall, and it's attached to a player with only 4 Pro Bowls and no better awards.
Bode's rookie season was arguably the 4th best season of his career; he managed 3 sacks, 3 TFLs, 1 FF, 2 PDs, and a pick. There were a double digit number of better LB seasons, and thus Bode missed the Pro Bowl. S16 was slightly worse: 2 sacks, 2 TFLs, 3 PDs, 1/1 FF/FR. This made Bode one of the least impactful LBs in the league as far as impact plays were concerned. S17 saw Bode lead the league in tackles for the first time in his career, and manage 2/2 FF/FR, but the rest of his impact plays were 1 sack and 3 PDs. Yet again, there were a double digit number of better LB seasons. S18 saw Bode make the Pro Bowl for the first time in his career, although I think it was actually slightly worse than his rookie season: 1 sack, 4 TFLs, 3 PDs, a pick, and a forced fumble. There were arguably not a double digit number of better LBs this season, but there were at least 4 better LBs in his conference and thus I do not think this was a deserved Pro Bowl.
S19 saw Bode return to the Pro Bowl, with one of his 3 seasons that had more than 3 sacks: 5 sacks, 1 TFL, 7 PDs, 2 picks, and 2/1 FF/FRs. This was the first season of Bode's career that didn't have 100 tackles, but it was by far his best so far. While this wasn't the best LB season ever, there were only 5 better ones this year and as such Bode deserved his first Pro Bowl. S20 was a mixed bag, back to below average impact plays, but with some turnovers this time: 1 sack, 2 TFLs, 3 PDs, a pick, and 2/1 FF/FRs. Unfortunately, this was a season where there were 5 better LBs in his conference, and about 8 or 9 better overall. I think Bode deserved to (just barely) miss this Pro Bowl.
S21 saw Bode return to form, but when your form is like Bode's, this isn't a positive thing; he had 3 sacks, 3 TFLs, 3 PDs, and 1 FF all season. Yet again, there were a double digit number of better LB seasons. S22 was better, he only had 2 sacks, 2 TFLs, and 3 PDs, but he also managed 3 FFs and a fumble recovery. I think there were about 8 to 10 better LBs this season, so this was yet again a deserved miss, but I think it was closer to making it than S21. S23 was Bode's final Pro Bowl of his career, with 154 tackles, 2 sacks, 5 PDs, 2 INTs, and 1/2 FF/FRs. This wasn't the best LB season or anything, but it was at least the best season in his ballpark of tackles; I think there were only 6 better LBs on the year, and only 3 of those were in his conference. Bode deserved this Pro Bowl.
S24, on the other hand, was just a bad season; 1 sack, 1 TFL, 6 PDs, 1 FR. There are only 3 LBs who I think have even an argument to be worse on the season, there are over 20 better LBs. S25 was significantly better, he nearly matched his tackle total from S23 with 153, managed 5 sacks, 2 TFLs, 7 PDs, a pick, and 2 FFs. That being said, there were now 14 teams in the league and the expansion meant that there were still a double digit number of LBs who I consider better. S26 was the one year of Bode's career where he managed double digit sacks, and there's an argument that this 10 sack, 1 TFL, 15 PD, 2/2 FF/FR, 1 blocked punt season was the best of Bode's entire career. Honestly, I think it deserved the Pro Bowl, I think it was the 6th or 7th best season among LBs this year, and I think he was a top 4 LB in his Conference. S27 was a nothing season.
Bode doesn't belong in the Hall. He was great at tackling over his career, but that's the only thing he was great at. He was mediocre at pass defense, he was flat out bad at everything else. It is impressive in all the wrong ways to play 184 games as a Linebacker in DDSPF and manage less than 40 sacks. This isn't even a middle linebacker thing, literally every other MLB I've covered in this project had significantly more PDs and sacks in significantly less games than Bode. As far as I can tell, no other LB in league history played anywhere near as many games as Bode and contributed so little outside of tackles. Even his decent seeming FF/FR stats have to reckon with the fact that literally nobody else in league history not named Bender Rodriguez had more attempts to force a fumble. He made 2 of his Pro Bowls on merit, should have made a 3rd, and even if I say he should have made 5 out of 13 Pro Bowls that's not enough to get a guy with this dry of a stat sheet into the Hall. At least the other players like Quaid and Rodriguez who are high up in tackles have other parts of their legacy to be proud of outside of 1300+ tackles, at least Selich and Roenick had a peak. Bode had more seasons where he wasn't a top 10 LB than seasons where he would even be allowed to attend the Pro Bowl with a ticket, and had no seasons as a top 5 LB. NO.
MATHIAS HANYADI
User: @CLG Rampage
YKW (S19 - S25)
AZ (S25 - S25)
BAL (S26 - S27)
RB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
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1x Ultimus Champion (S23)
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AWARDS
3x Running Back of the Year (S20, S22, S23)
2x Offensive Player of the Year (S20, S22)
1x Most Valuable Player (S23)
1x Offensive Performance of the Year (S23)
6x Pro Bowler (S20, S21, S22, S23, S24, S26)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#22 Career Rush Att (2153.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#10 Career ST PRLng (88.00)
#19 Career ST KRAvg (28.39)
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SEASON RECORDS
#20 Season ST PRYds (S23 - 437.00)
#1 Season ST KRLng (S26 - 108.00)
#10 Season ST PRLng (S25 - 88.00)
#2 Season AllPurpose Yds (S23 - 3463.00)
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GAME RECORDS
#18 Game Rush Avg (S27W3 - 32.00)
#7 Game ST PRYds (S23W3 - 146.00)
#11 Game ST PRYds (S25W1 - 136.00)
#1 Game ST KRLng (S26W6 - 108.00)
#10 Game ST PRLng (S25W1 - 88.00)
#17 Game Points (S23W10 - 24.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#6 Career Rush Att (216.00)
#3 Career Rush Yds (991.00)
#13 Career Other Sacks Allowed (3.00)
#15 Career AllPurpose Yds (1560.00)
#7 Career Scrimmage Yds (1299.00)
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POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#8 Season Rush Att (S21 - 62.00)
#8 Season Rush Yds (S21 - 276.00)
#9 Season Other Sacks Allowed (S21 - 2.00)
#11 Season Scrimmage Yds (S21 - 372.00)
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POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#16 Game AllPurpose Yds (S23W19 - 268.00)
Overall Statistics: 9,159 rushing yards, 4.25 ypc, 72 rushing TDs
420 receptions, 3,599 receiving yards, 20 receiving TDs
From a player who got 7/9 votes on the S31 ballot who I want out of the Hall, to a player who got 7/9 votes on this ballot who I wonder how they only got 7 votes, Mathias Hanyadi is maybe the 3rd best Old Sim RB after Marquise Brown and Owen Taylor. He's 23rd in attempts (I'm not sure why the bot says 22nd...maybe it hasn't updated for Ace Anderson passing him this year?) 28th in rushing yards, T-33rd in rushing TDs, all while boasting an exceptional yards per carry for the old sim, 96th overall. I wouldn't be the most surprised if it was the single highest before he was thrown onto a Worst Team of All Time contender for the final 2 seasons of his career. Hanyadi also managed a decent amount of receiving production, with the 4th most receptions of any mostly old sim RB, the 3rd most yards, and the T-6th most touchdowns.
Hanyadi started his career with a single lackluster year in S19: just under 800 yards, 3.97 ypc, 10 touchdowns, along with 400 more yards and 3 touchdowns receiving, not good, not pro bowl worthy, and especially notable that his fellow rookie backfield-mate managed 4.6 yards per carry at the same time. Hanyadi's reign over the RB position came immediately afterwards, though. S20 was a year where Hanyadi led the league in efficiency with 4.31 ypc and touchdowns with 11, while managing 1100 yards, 3rd most in the league. Hanyadi was even the most productive pure RB receiving, with 400 yards and 4 more touchdowns. This won RBotY pretty handily, and managed OPOY. Considering how bad the QB seasons were (this was a year where the best QB seasons was a mostly pure passer with a 91.5 passer rating and a dual threat QB whose passer rating was 86.1, as a reminder), there's an argument that this could have been the MVP; it wasn't often around this time period that the highest touchdown RB was also the most efficient. The other option was a receiver with over 100 yards per game and 12 touchdowns in Ahri Espeeyeeseetee. Any of those were decent options, so I'm not going to complain about Hanyadi receiving it.
S21 was the down year of this era for Hanyadi; he was merely a Pro Bowler instead of a major award winner. Overall, he managed 1000 yards on 4.33 ypc, 7 touchdowns, plus 550 yards and another touchdown through the air. I think Hanyadi was the 2nd or 3rd best RB in his conference, which I believe means this pro bowl was deserved, and the 5th or 6th best RB overall. S22 saw Hanyadi return to being the best RB, and this was a doozy of a season; 1280 yards on the ground, most, 7 TDs, 2nd most, 4.78 ypc, 2nd best, with another 440 yards and 4 touchdowns receiving at over 10 yards per reception. There was no competition here; Hanyadi was the best RB and I think he had a better argument to be MVP over Bigsby than anyone else had to be OPOY over him (to be clear, I don't think he has a good argument over Bigsby). S23 was maybe not the best season of Hanyadi's career, he only managed a 4.42 ypc and was 2.5 yards per reception worse than his prior year. However, it was his single most productive by quite a ways; he managed over 1300 yards on the ground and over 500 receiving, along with 16 total touchdowns. No player was more efficient in the league this year, and while one player was almost as efficient in rushing and managed more yards, nobody came even close to his touchdown total. Considering this was one of the worst seasons ever in terms of QB play, I think the MVP was justified.
That was it for Hanyadi's peak, but it was quite a peak. Hanyadi managed to make the Pro Bowl in S24 with 4.45 ypc and 1100 yards, but only 5 touchdowns, along with nearly 400 more yards and a touchdown receiving on great efficiency for the time. I think he was arguably the best RB that year, he was flat out the most efficient RB on the year, and only didn't win because he managed 6 total TDs compared to the winner of RBotY's 13. I like Hanyadi there. S25 saw Hanyadi act as part of a running back by committee and thus was not really up for a Pro Bowl. Meanwhile, S26 was kind of a travesty, Mathias managed only 3.73 ypc, and I don't care if he got 9 touchdowns combined and had the 3rd most rushing yards in the league, I see at least 3 better RBs in his conference and another 7 in the ASFC; this was a bad season, and did not deserve the Pro Bowl. S27 was a bad RB2 season on a horrendous team, and is most notable as such for continuing Hanyadi's late career slide of yards per carry. Before being moved to a bad Baltimore squad for the final 2 seasons of his career, Hanyadi had a 4.38 yards per carry, which would have been the highest among all Old Sim Hall of Fame RBs.
Hanyadi spent 4 seasons of his career being at worst the 2nd best RB in the league, winning major awards in 3 seasons and as such could probably have waltzed to the Hall even if every other season of his career was as bad as his time spent on Baltimore. He wasn't that bad outside of, well, his time on Baltimore, and as such is an RB I'm more surprised only got 7/9 votes instead of the unanimous 9 I think he deserved.
DERMOT LAVELLE JR.
User: @White Cornerback
AUS (S16 - S25)
BAL (S26 - S28)
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
1x Ultimus Champion (S20)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Cornerback of the Year (S24)
1x Returner of the Year (S24)
7x Pro Bowler (S17, S18, S19, S20, S22, S23, S24)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#1 Career ST KR (457.00)
#1 Career ST KRYds (11250.00)
#2 Career ST PRYds (3378.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#8 Career ST KR_TD (3.00)
#5 Career ST PR_TD (5.00)
#1 Career ST PR (370.00)
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SEASON RECORDS
#1 Season ST KRLng (S25 - 108.00)
#3 Season ST KR_TD (S24 - 2.00)
#4 Season ST PR_TD (S17 - 2.00)
#18 Season ST PR (S25 - 43.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#6 Game ST KR (S17W6 - 7.00)
#22 Game ST PRYds (S20W11 - 122.00)
#23 Game ST PRYds (S21W13 - 120.00)
#1 Game ST KRLng (S25W16 - 108.00)
#4 Game ST PR (S20W3 - 8.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S19W2 - 6.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S23W7 - 6.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S25W9 - 6.00)
#14 Game ST KRAvg (S24W12 - 103.00)
#2 Game ST PRAvg (S24W8 - 83.00)
#4 Game ST PRAvg (S19W11 - 80.00)
#7 Game ST PRAvg (S17W9 - 78.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#2 Career ST KR (28.00)
#3 Career ST KRYds (696.00)
#21 Career ST KRLng (58.00)
#24 Career ST PR (10.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#18 Season DEF PD (S23 - 6.00)
#7 Season ST KR (S23 - 8.00)
#18 Season ST KR (S22 - 7.00)
#13 Season ST KRYds (S23 - 214.00)
#24 Season ST KRLng (S22 - 58.00)
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POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#24 Game DEF PD (S23W19 - 4.00)
#24 Game ST KRLng (S22W14 - 58.00)
Overall Statistics: 751 tackles, 200 PDs, 26 INTs, 2 INTs, 3 FFs
Lavelle Jr is by no means his father, though I'm pretty sure he should waltz to the Hall regardless. Jr is currently 31st in PDs, which, according to the not always correct Hall of Fame post, was 2nd to his father at the time of his retirement. The bigger issue with Lavelle Jr, at least to me, is his strangely low INT and TD total for a guy with as many PDs as he has; 26 on its face is a decent chunk but it's only T-30th, despite playing for 187 games in total, 5 more than his father. I think he was 10th among CBs at the time of his retirement despite having played more games than anyone else in league history at CB. Only 2 TDs (T-88th) and 3 FFs (T-127th) are such low totals that Astro has matched that touchdown total through 10 games in S50 and 3 different CBs (Devin Jones, Paul Dosza, and Luigi Numberone) have better Fumble stats through 10 games than throughout Jr's entire career. Granted different sims, but there is a limit there to the point that I'm very certain those particular marks are bad even for an old sim CB. The other big part of Lavelle's career is that he's the single best return man ever, which is something I'm not covering all that much and might get Lavelle into the Hall even if his career was bad.
S16, Jr's rookie season, wasn't all that great, only 8 PDs and 1 pick was bad even for the time, but it was his rookie year. S17 was much better, not Pro Bowl worthy for CB play, but 15 PDs and 2 picks was significantly better. I have to assume that Lavelle got his Pro Bowl this year because of 2 punt return touchdowns, not for a season where he was the 10th best CB. S18 was actually a regression for Jr, he managed 14 PDs and a forced fumble, nothing else. Well over 10 better CBs on the year, this was hopefully a returner pro bowl. S19 was a better year, but still middling; only 13 PDs and a pick. Due to the performance of everyone else, this was arguably a bottom 5 CB performance on the year.
S20, thank goodness, was an actual great year Jr, the first of his career. 19 PDs, 3 INTs, a FF, and a TD. I think Jr was the 2nd best CB on the season, just behind Hornbacher. S21 was an awful season, with only 10 PDs; this was a year where I think Jr was a bottom 5 CB. Thankfully that was the worst season of his career, S22 was back to a good season. 14 PDs, 3 INTs. This wasn't an amazing CB season, but I think it ends up with a lower down Pro Bowl as about the 7th or 8th best CB season, and the 3rd or 4th best season in his conference. S23 was a new peak season with 15 PDs and 5 INTs; I think it was the 3rd best CB season in an overall great season for CBs. And S24 was the best season of Jr's entire career. 20 PDs, 6 INTs, and a touchdown. Easily the CBotY, and considering this season managed 3 return touchdowns on top of it, it feels like he might have had an argument for a major award, maybe DPOY, maybe even MVP; as is it just went home with the CBotY.
That was the last Pro Bowl of Jr's career in reality; S25 was an OK season but not a great one with 17 PDs but only 1 INT. Due to a bunch of great seasons this year, there were over 20 better seasons. S26 was yet another bad season for Jr, with only 15 PDs. This was a bottom 5 CB season overall. S27 was actually one of the best seasons of Jr's career, with 23 PDs and 2 INTs, but the move to the new sim meant there were still well over a double digit number of better CB seasons this year. S28 was similar with decent stats for Jr's career, but bad overall placement with 17 PDs and 2 INTs; there were over 20 better CB seasons, including 2 better CB seasons on his own team (and I seem to remember Dermot being CB2 and not CB 3 that year).
Jr has a decent peak; over a 5 season stretch he was the best CB once and a top 3 CB 2 other times, with another season he was pro bowl worthy. On the other hand, the majority of Dermot's seasons were not great, whether we're talking about for the time or in total, and only deserving to make 4 Pro Bowls over 13 seasons is REALLY really rough. There were literally as many seasons where I described Jr as a bottom 5 CB on the year as seasons where he deserved to make the Pro Bowl as a CB. He's kind of a compiler at best. That being said, he is the most productive returner of all time. Even if he's not a slam dunk player in the slightest as a CB, the fact that he was so successful returning means that he gets into the Hall regardless, by basically being a significantly better version of Devin Hester (by actually being an OK CB). As far as CB performance is concerned, I lean more towards saying Jr doesn't belong in the Hall, but he wasn't just a CB. That makes this spot deserved, despite his shaky play at his primary position.
ASHLEY OWENS
User: @run_CMC
AUS (S17 - S18)
COL (S19 - S24)
NYS (S25 - S27)
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
1x Ultimus Champion (S22)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Offensive Rookie of the Year (S17)
1x Offensive Player of the Year (S25)
1x Running Back of the Year (S25)
5x Pro Bowler (S18, S19, S20, S24, S25)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#15 Career Rush Att (2361.00)
#5 Career ST KR (329.00)
#6 Career ST KRYds (8057.00)
#20 Career ST PRYds (1690.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#20 Career ST KR_TD (2.00)
#18 Career ST PR (192.00)
#2 Career AllPurpose Yds (25119.00)
#16 Career Scrimmage Yds (15372.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#9 Season Rush Att (S25 - 397.00)
#8 Season ST KR (S25 - 50.00)
#16 Season ST KRYds (S25 - 1301.00)
#1 Season ST KRLng (S24 - 108.00)
#18 Season ST KR_TD (S24 - 1.00)
#18 Season ST KR_TD (S25 - 1.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S21 - 1.00)
#1 Season AllPurpose Yds (S25 - 3597.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#1 Game ST KRLng (S24W12 - 108.00)
#1 Game ST KR_TD (S24W12 - 1.00)
#1 Game ST KR_TD (S25W1 - 1.00)
#3 Game ST PR_TD (S21W5 - 1.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S22W12 - 6.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S26W4 - 6.00)
#22 Game ST PRAvg (S25W6 - 69.00)
#10 Game AllPurpose Yds (S25W9 - 374.00)
#22 Game AllPurpose Yds (S25W15 - 341.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#3 Career Rush Att (231.00)
#8 Career Rush Yds (857.00)
#23 Career Rush TD (5.00)
#2 Career ST KR (28.00)
#6 Career ST KRYds (690.00)
#3 Career ST PRYds (219.00)
#3 Career ST PR (24.00)
#5 Career AllPurpose Yds (2133.00)
#10 Career Scrimmage Yds (1224.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#18 Season AllPurpose Yds (S22 - 463.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#4 Game Rush Att (S21W14 - 35.00)
#8 Game Rush Att (S23W18 - 33.00)
#13 Game ST KR (S18W14 - 5.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S22W14 - 4.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S23W18 - 4.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S24W19 - 4.00)
#9 Game AllPurpose Yds (S23W18 - 286.00)
Overall Statistics: 9,109 rushing yards, 3.86 ypc, 71 rushing touchdowns
665 receiving yards, 6,263 receiving yards, 30 receiving touchdowns
OK, let's go over the records. Ashley Owens is 15th in attempts, T-29th in yards (I bet you can tell what I'm going to complain about), 36th in touchdowns rushing. In receiving, he's 3rd in receptions, 4th in yards, and T-17th in touchdowns. Ashley Owens is 2nd in all purpose yards, which I don't really care about. I don't think 1st is in the Hall or even close. In scrimmage rankings, which is more important, Owens is 16th in yards and T-31st in touchdowns. The big albatross hanging over Owens is that yards per carry. He ranks 166th all time, one spot above Reg Mackworthy, who as you may recall had to play about half of his career in a horrendous period for RBs. Owens, by contrast, played in a time period with multiple great, Hall of Fame worthy RBs, with marks well over 4 yards per carry.
Ashley Owens started his career with the 2nd greatest year of his career by rushing efficiency. With 4.05 ypc, 4 touchdowns, and just under 750 yards per carry. This wasn't even the best season from an Austin RB this year. S18, Owens' first Pro Bowl, was even worse. Sure, Owens managed nearly 700 yards and 2 touchdowns on over 10 yards per reception, but I don't care, because he also ran for 3.52 yards per carry. That's only been an acceptable mark from seasons like 2-5, and he didn't even have a ton of yards, only 623. Go directly to rushing jail, do not pass go, do not collect a Pro Bowl. Hopefully this was for returning? S19 was a better season, but I still hesitate to call it good. Sure, Owens managed over 1000 rushing yards for the first time in his career, added on nearly 600 yards receiving, and managed 14 total touchdowns. However, Owens also ran for 3.80 yards per carry. Last part, I complained about Mendonca making the Pro Bowl in the same year with a BETTER SEASON than this one, and while part of that was due to the RBs in the ASFC being better than the RBs in the NSFC, I think there were a minimum of 3 better RBs, if not 4 or 5; if Owens made the Pro Bowl, it was as literally the worst RB1 in the entire league who just got lucky that one team in his conference ran RBBC; needless to say, as the worst RB1 in the league even if he technically could have made this pro bowl legitimately I'm not counting it for him.
S20 was the 2nd of 3 seasons where Owens ran for at least 4 yards per carry, with 4.04. He managed 900 yards and 7 touchdowns, while adding 500 yards and 2 touchdowns receiving. I am less inclined to immediately dismiss it as a result of managing an OK yards per carry, and overall I think Owens deserved the Pro Bowl this year as the 5th best RB. S21 was a better year than at least one prior Pro Bowl season, but with only 700 yards and 4 touchdowns on 3.92 ypc, even getting 600 yards and 4 touchdowns through the air wasn't enough to tip him into the Pro Bowl for voters. There were a double digit number of better RBs, which is impressive in a season where there were only 10 teams. S22 saw Owens be the 2nd worst RB1 on the year, with only 700 yards and 5 touchdowns on 3.89 ypc. S23 was, incredibly, worse, with 3.56 ypc. Finally, S24 showed the Owens that he could be: 4.41 ypc, just under 900 yards, 7 touchdowns, plus nearly 600 yards and 2 touchdowns receiving. This wasn't the greatest year imaginable, but in my head this would be worthy of a 2nd team All Pro slot and easily deserved the Pro Bowl it got in reality; it was somewhere around the 4th best season in my head.
S25 is the season that got Owens in the Hall. It also is a season that hurt his team every time he touched the ball. In S25, Owens ran for 1542 yards and 6 touchdowns, while adding in 506 and a touchdown receiving. This was on almost guaranteed to be bad receiving efficiency (8.16 yards per reception in a time period where almost nobody completed 60% of their passes, his QB had a yards per reception north of 12 to compare) and was on bad rushing efficiency. Am I supposed to award a player for rushing 397 times when they did so at 3.88 yards per carry? Am I supposed to say this was a Pro Bowl season, or even a good one? Because I will not do so; this deserved to miss the Pro Bowl, because that's what happens when you're in the bottom 4 in terms of efficiency. The fact that this got an OPOY and an RBotY is ridiculous, there is no achievement to running the ball a ton when this is a league with injuries turned off. S26 was a significantly better season, with 12 total touchdowns, over 10 yards per reception, a still bad 3.93 ypc, but since it had just under 1800 yards instead of 2000, the 2nd worst RB1 season by efficiency did not get a Pro Bowl.
S27 is a strange season where Owens managed to get a touchdown on 10% of his carries, but only rush for 2.34 ypc on 71 carries. It was probably bad because he definitely wasn't only being used as a short yardage back, because I'm very certain the sim doesn't have a guaranteed "short yardage back" position.
There might be the smallest bit of Hall of Fame worthiness in playing more games at RB than anyone had prior and finishing 3rd in scrimmage yards and 7th in scrimmage touchdowns. That greatness is not added to in the slightest by being a decent returner for one's entire career and going up to the most all purpose yards, and the 7th most touchdowns. I would like to explore Dante King for a moment: He currently leads in All Purpose Yards, is significantly higher than Owens in both Scrimmage Yards and touchdowns (as well as All Purpose Touchdowns), and managed to have 4.62 yards per carry for his career, which today is top 30 among all RBs. He is not in the Hall because he never had enough volume to have a great peak. Owens is kind of the opposite; he never had the efficiency to have a great peak. He at most deserved 2 Pro Bowls and a year as the 4th best RB.
We do not exist in a league where players get benched for poor performance or not resigned, partly because the league is nowhere near big enough to do that, but also because we can see which players should be better. As such, I really don't find Owens' volume that impressive. Ashley Owens has a single season where he managed more than 4.05 ypc. Ashley Owens managed to be under 3.6 yards per carry 5 times, and only managed to be above 4 yards per carry 3 times. Reg Mackworthy has better marks in every single one of those categories, and that's despite playing 11 seasons total and spending 4 of them in a league where 3.6 yards per carry would have been OPOY worthy. Not only does Ashley Owens not belong, but they make me think that Mako Mendonca might not have been the worst RB in the Hall; at least he has a yards per carry above 4! Heck, he only had 16 less touchdowns from scrimmage over 35 less games.
Owens kind of reminds me of a guy who he lined up behind for a bit. McDummy was great, although not all time great, at rushing as a QB, but I don't feel that was enough to make up for him being the worst passer in the Hall and one of the worst in league history. Owens is almost the exact same, in that he's great but not all time great at receiving at the RB position, but I don't feel that was enough to make up for him being almost exactly as efficient a rusher as Mackworthy without having to play in the worst time in league history to be an RB.
AUSTIN MCCORMICK
User: @Nokazoa
NOLA (S19 - S28)
Unanimous Inductee? YES
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1x Ultimus Champion (S21)
-------------
AWARDS
2x Tight End of the Year (S22, S23)
6x Pro Bowler (S21, S22, S23, S24, S26, S27)
-------------
Important Records
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#3 Career Rec Rec (87.00)
#23 Career Rec Yds (806.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#12 Season Rec Rec (S27 - 20.00)
#18 Season Rec Rec (S26 - 18.00)
Overall Statistics: 694 receptions, 7,081 yards, 43 touchdowns
245 pancakes, 3 sacks allowed
Thank goodness for Austin McCormick because otherwise this would be even more negative coverage of the S32 ballot than it already is. McCormick is currently 9th in receptions, 8th in yards, and 9th in touchdowns among TEs, along with being 29th in pancakes and T-58th in Sacks Allowed. Overall, not the greatest receiver we've ever seen at the position, nor the greatest blocker, but at least good if not great in both categories is more than enough. McCormick didn't actually play as long as the previous great TEs (outside of Blaze) due to only playing 10 seasons; he only played 148 games, DiMirio played 168 and L'Alto played 178. At McCormick's induction, he would have had the 5th most yards and the 6th most touchdowns among TEs. He also still has the 3rd most receptions in postseason history, only behind Kotoni Staggs and Verso L'Alto.
Austin's first couple seasons were unexceptional; he wasn't particularly good but he wasn't particularly bad, either. S20 is notable, because while the stats in and of themselves aren't amazing (604 yards, 3 TDs), they make him the 3rd best TE on the year, and what would be an easy Pro Bowl if not for the fact that the only 2 better TEs were in his conference. S21 was the first of Austin's peak stretch, where he made 6/7 Pro Bowls, and while it was well off the pace of Johnny Blaze's final great season, I think Austin was the 2nd best TE this year. S22 saw Austin easily be the best TE, with 900 yards, 5 TDs, and over 13 yards per reception, an impressive number for the TE position at this time. S23 was much more mixed, there was some actual competition this season in the form of Blocksdale Jr and Angler, but I think Austin ends up grading out the best with just under 700 yards and 8 touchdowns; he also happened to be the best blocker of the 3.
S24 and S25 showed that this new era of TEs would be very, very different than the previous eras of DiMirio, L'Alto, and Blaze; nobody would hold dominion over TEotY for too long, there was too much competition now. S24 saw McCormick have a good season with 700 yards and 5 touchdowns, but it was completely blown away by Heath Evans, and thus was only the 2nd best year overall. S25 was statistically superior, with 850 yards and 4 touchdowns, but this was the worst season of Austin's career blocking (27 Pancakes, 2 SAs), and even then Austin was only statistically the 4th best receiving TE this year, with 2 of the better ones also being in the ASFC. S26 saw Austin return to the Pro Bowl, though I personally think it was McCormick's worst season in a long while; just over 650 yards and 5 touchdowns while not managing 10 yards per reception for the first time since S20, means that it would take something special to be up for the Pro Bowl this season. That something special is that one of the 5 TEs that was better was only barely better, and had the benefit of lining up at WR some of the time, which meant Austin managed to sneak in as the 5th best TE on the year and the 2nd best in his conference.
S27 was the lone year where McCormick managed over 1000 yards, but since he only had 2 touchdowns he wasn't up for a TEotY. Still, he was at worst the 4th best TE, I'd have him 3rd, and as such it was an easy Pro Bowl. S28 wasn't the greatest season, but it was about average, and for a 10th season in retirement that's perfectly reasonable. Overall, McCormick ended up sharing space with a number of other TEs, some Hall of Famers, some not, in what was somewhat of a golden age for TEs in the S20s. I feel like a higher number of great TEs played during this period more than any other, and as such McCormick suffers in an all time TE ranking estimation, especially considering I'm not 100% sure he was the single best TE during this period; he never had the era dominance of the previous 3 Hall of Fame TEs, and one of his contemporaries had significantly higher highs and better receiving, at the cost of being probably the worst TE blocker ever. An All Time TE ranking estimation is not what this is, though. It's about whether McCormick belongs in the Hall, and...yes, it's not all that hard of a question for me. Not the greatest TE ever, but retired with an easy claim to be top 5 with everyone else in that top 5 being Hall of Famers themselves, has both the major awards and pro bowls to belong, was the best TE twice and the 2nd best twice, while McCormick probably ends up on the lower end of Hall of Fame TEs, that only speaks to the fact that only the very best TEs can even make it to the Hall. McCormick on his own merits completely deserves it.
Final guy for the part coming up, and it's a doozy.
DAVID RECTOR
User: @ddrector
NOLA (S18 - S27)
CB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
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1x Ultimus Champion (S21)
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AWARDS
1x Defensive Performance of the Year (S22)
1x Defensive Breakout Player of the Year (S22)
1x Defensive Player of the Year (S26)
1x Cornerback of the Year (S26)
2x Pro Bowler (S22, S26)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#22 Career ST PRLng (86.00)
#16 Career ST PR_TD (2.00)
#25 Career ST KRAvg (27.87)
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SEASON RECORDS
#25 Season ST KR (S25 - 46.00)
#10 Season ST KRYds (S25 - 1330.00)
#23 Season ST PRYds (S26 - 426.00)
#23 Season ST PRLng (S26 - 86.00)
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GAME RECORDS
#11 Game DEF PD (S26W1 - 7.00)
#4 Game DEF Int (S22W6 - 3.00)
#6 Game ST KR (S25W12 - 7.00)
#21 Game ST PRYds (S26W3 - 124.00)
#23 Game ST PRLng (S26W3 - 86.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#24 Career DEF PD (14.00)
#25 Career ST PRYds (107.00)
#23 Career ST KRLng (49.00)
#13 Career ST PR (14.00)
#20 Career ST KRAvg (33.44)
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POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#9 Season ST KRYds (S26 - 234.00)
#6 Season ST PRYds (S26 - 107.00)
#1 Season ST PR (S26 - 13.00)
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POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#11 Game ST PR (S26W17 - 5.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S26W18 - 4.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S26W19 - 4.00)
#12 Game ST KRAvg (S26W17 - 47.00)
Overall Statistics: 622 tackles, 168 PDs, 31 INTs, 3 TDs, 5 FFs, 1 FR
As far as statistics are concerned, David Rector is a little out of place in the Hall; among all CBs he's T-59th in tackles, T-52nd in PDs (with I believe the single lowest amount for any Hall of Famer at the time of his induction) and a significantly better T-17th in INTs, which happens to be tied with Marc Spector for the 2nd lowest INT total among Hall of Fame CBs at the time of his induction. Technically it's actually tied for lowest considering the only player with less was Dermot Lavelle Jr, who was inducted on the same ballot. Rector is T-55th in defensive TDs, T-92nd in FFs, and is actually in the bottom half of all CBs to ever play the game with only 1 FR; he's T-144th out of 263. One mark in Rector's favor is that he only played 10 seasons, half of which were in the 13 game era, and as such only played 145 total games.
David Rector had a rookie season to forgot, he was the single worst CB in the league in S18 with only 2 PDs and a TFL. S19 was significantly better, with 6 PDs, 3 INTs, 2/1 FF/FR, and 6 sacks, but there were still a double digit number of better CBs in the league this season and thus Rector was not Pro Bowl caliber. S20 was the polar opposite of the prior season for the exact same result; 19 PDs, 1 FF, nothing else; at least 15 better CBs on the year. S21 was even worse with only 15 PDs. Yet again, there were a double digit number of better CBs that season. S22 was the first great season of Rector's career, 17 PDs, 5 INTs. It was Rector's first Pro Bowl, and I think he was the 4th best CB on the season. He wasn't that far off statistically from number 1 either.
S23 was another good season from Rector, with 15 PDs and 5 INTs, overall I think he was the 6th best CB on the year, but with 4 of the better ones coming from the ASFC that meant Rector ended up missing the Pro Bowl with a bit of bad luck. S24 finally saw Rector regress a tiny bit on the INT luck, with 17 PDs, 1 FF, but only 3 INTs; there were 9 or 10 better CBs on the season and Rector missed the Pro Bowl yet again. S25 arguably should have been a better year from Rector; he managed 24 PDs and a FF, but couldn't manage more than 3 INTs. There were, once again, a double digit number of better CBs.
S26 is the year that got Rector into the Hall of Fame. He managed 32 PDs, 7 INTs, and 2 TDs. This was awarded with the DPOY and the CBotY, and there's no argument for either. S27 was seemingly a great season, and for a final season it was great, but it didn't make the Pro Bowl and wasn't particularly close: 21 PDs, 5 INTs, 1 TD. There were 9 better CBs that year and thus it deserved to miss the Pro Bowl.
David Rector may be the most infamous Hall of Famer. I'm pretty sure there's nobody with as few Pro Bowls in the Hall, and while he had a couple other nice seasons, there was only one other season where I think he even had a shot to make the Pro Bowl. He had multiple seasons as one of the worst CBs in the league. His entire candidacy rests on a single season, in which case I'd like to see Cooper Kupp make the Hall of Fame in real life. To make a comparison, my current player's career isn't amazing; I think I'm at best the 2nd best CB in my own draft class, if not 3rd. But in significantly less seasons and significantly less games, I have as many 1st team All Pro seasons as Rector has Pro Bowl seasons, and while neither were as the best CB in the league, I also could possibly make it in this season, which would mean I have as many 1st team All Pro seasons as seasons Rector even had an argument to MAKE a Pro Bowl. Rector had a single season as the equivalent of a 2nd team All Pro and one season as a 1st Team All pro, and while the DPOY is nice I'm not sure it's enough. Rector's stats are not great for a Hall of Famer, his peak is great but it's only a single year, and he only made 2 Pro Bowls. That's not enough to make the Hall in my book, and indeed it doesn't seem like it is in most people's books; I'm not sure there's a single player who is more often talked about as the "undeserving Hall of Famer" than Rector.
ALEX DASISTWIRKLICHSEINNACHNAME
User: @BigKicks
OCO (S15 - S27)
K/P
Unanimous Inductee? YES
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3x Ultimus Champion (S17, S18, S19)
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AWARDS
2x Punter of the Year (S17, S26)
2x Kicker of the Year (S19, S21)
7x Pro Bowler (S16, S17, S18, S19, S21, S22, S26)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#3 Career K XPM (517.00)
#2 Career K XPA (545.00)
#4 Career P Punts (968.00)
#3 Career P Yds (45530.00)
#15 Career P Avg (47.04)
#16 Career P Lng (76.00)
#2 Career K FGM (346.00)
#2 Career K FGA (374.00)
#3 Career K FGPct (0.93)
#2 Career Points (1555.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#21 Season P Lng (S19 - 76.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S22 - 1.00)
#13 Season K FGM (S24 - 36.00)
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GAME RECORDS
#25 Game K XPM (S16W3 - 7.00)
#25 Game K XPM (S21W4 - 7.00)
#5 Game P In20Rate (S23W15 - 1.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S16W11 - 5.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S18W6 - 5.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S22W6 - 5.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S24W9 - 5.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S25W9 - 5.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#1 Career P Punts (113.00)
#1 Career P Yds (5256.00)
#11 Career P Avg (46.51)
#20 Career P Lng (67.00)
#8 Career P Inside 20 (19.00)
#25 Career P In20Rate (0.17)
#10 Career Points (98.00)
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POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#6 Season P Punts (S18 - 19.00)
#19 Season P Punts (S17 - 16.00)
#4 Season P Yds (S18 - 924.00)
#23 Season P Yds (S17 - 730.00)
#20 Season P Avg (S18 - 48.63)
#25 Season P Lng (S17 - 67.00)
#25 Season P Lng (S20 - 67.00)
#24 Season P Inside 20 (S18 - 4.00)
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POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#3 Game K XPM (S22W15 - 6.00)
#6 Game K XPA (S22W15 - 6.00)
#11 Game K XPA (S17W15 - 5.00)
#2 Game P Punts (S16W15 - 13.00)
#11 Game P Punts (S18W15 - 10.00)
#11 Game P Punts (S20W14 - 10.00)
#5 Game P Yds (S16W15 - 567.00)
#16 Game P Yds (S20W14 - 477.00)
#21 Game P Yds (S18W15 - 465.00)
#24 Game P Yds (S18W16 - 459.00)
Overall Statistics: 517/545 XP, 94.86%; 346/374 FG, 92.51%
45,530 punt yards, 47.04 avg, 18.4% in20 rate
After a part 7 where I came away from it only liking a single player more than the league did at the time, we're back into the all time greats. Alex D, which is what I will be calling this player from here on out (he gets one full spelling of his name per media piece) is the only player as far as I'm aware of, who is both an inner circle all time great Punter and Kicker. Before I dive deeper, let's go year by year, because in covering someone else I already saw one award that I'd give him over Kulture Fulture.
Alex's rookie S15 season was mediocre, which is better than you'd expect. He was a below average punter and an average kicker on the whole. S16, on the other hand, was the year I was looking at; I think Alex this year was a better kicker than Kulture Fulture, due to higher percentages and a similar level of kick difficulty. With a few more punts inside the 20, Alex this year might have deserved to sweep the awards; as is I'd give him KotY. S17 was Alex's first award in reality, as well as being a decent kicking season. His punting this season was undeniable, leading the league by multiple yards and managing a respectable for the time 14.3 percent of punts inside the 20. S18 was a year where he was the 2nd best punter and kicker in the league, but was held up from both awards by the best season of Kulture Fulture's career.
S19 saw Alex get his first KotY award in reality, 3 seasons after I think he should have received his first one. It wasn't a great year from him; he only had to take 4 kicks from 40 or more, and he missed one of them. There's an argument that Fulture should have won this award instead, but I think I'd give it to Alex by a hair. S20 saw Alex have one of his 3 seasons with under 90% FGs, and while his punting was great, Crisco put up a season with 49.98 yards per punt on average which mattered more than him having 13.3% punts inside the 20 compared to Alex having 46.86 and 17.9%. This was the first season he missed the Pro Bowl since his rookie year.
S21, on the other hand, saw Alex win his 2nd KotY award, and was the Pro Bowler for the ASFC in punting, too. He has an argument to sweep the awards, here: Venus Powers had 46.6 yards per punt to Alex's 48.2, Alex had a 20.3% punts inside the 20 to Powers' 22.6%. It's close and there's good arguments for both, that I'm guessing nobody realized because Powers punted 19 times more than Alex and thus blew everyone else out of the water with 21 punts inside the 20. S22 wasn't as good, but he was still the best kicker in his conference even as his punting fell completely off a cliff (7.4%? REALLY?). This would be Alex's last pro bowl for a while. S23 was his 2nd season under 90% on field goals, and he was one of the worst punters in the league. S24 was good except for the fact that he was under 90% on extra points; it took an all time great season from one of the few players who was a better punter than him to block Alex from the Pro Bowl on punting; his own season was excellent.
S25 was an amazing season from Alex kicking, which still managed to only be the 3rd best season in the conference; it's not often that a 96.4% FG season is only the 4th best on the year. It was also an amazing season from Alex Punting, this time without any caveats. Alex was 2nd in the entire league in punt average, and was 2nd in punts inside the 20. There are 3 people to keep in mind here: the winner of the PotY award, the person who competes with Alex (in the other conference, so either way Alex deserves the Pro Bowl), and Alex. The winner of the PotY, Dougie Smalls, had 47.23 yards per punt, and 20.4% punts inside the 20. Good year. Jacob Small managed a gargantuan 25.8% of punts inside the 20, but only managed a 45.98 yards per punt. Alex had 47.25 yards per punt and 22.0% of punts inside the 20. Needless to say, Alex at bare minimum deserved a Pro Bowl spot, and he has an argument for the PotY award. S26 was Alex's actual 2nd Punter of the Year award, as he managed a 47.98 yards per punt and a ridiculous 26.1% of punts inside the 20. The only player with a decent argument to be better had 49.26 yards per punt but only 17.0% of punts inside the 20. S27 wasn't a particularly good swan song season but Alex had punched his ticket to the Hall long beforehand.
Overall, Alex should have the 2nd most awards of any kicker/punter as far as I can tell, with 3 KotY awards and 2 PotY awards, plus 2 other PotY awards he has at least an argument for. By my count he should have had 10 total Pro Bowls, making the Pro Bowl in 8 out of 13 seasons and sweeping the Pro Bowls twice. And his awards are the less impressive part of his legacy in my eyes. Going from area to area, Alex has a single location where he's a bad kicker: Extra Points. And while he's a really bad kicker here, the 2nd worst in the Hall and currently 80th out of 92nd, these are all 1/3rd the importance of field goals. And Alex is the single best Field Goal kicker in league history, with his only competition playing 5 seasons and not having to deal with years deep in regression where he would have been a bad kicker. Alex is completely perfect on kicks under 30 yards out, and on kicks from 30-39 he's nearly perfect: he has the highest percentage among Hall of Fame kickers and in and of himself he's 8th at 97.6%. He's slightly worse on kicks from 40-49 yards, ranking T-19th at 83.8% (tied with Kulture Fulture ironically) but he's still well above the median Hall of Famer and the only better Hall of Famers are Dean Jackson and Micycle McCormick. From 50+, Alex is 20th with 70.8%, which stilll ranks 4th out of 9 Hall of Fame kickers; the only better kickers (Smalls, Fencik, and Powers) have multiple ranges where they're notably worse than Alex.
Alex is also arguably the greatest Punter of all time; he's 3rd of the 5 players who spent most of their time in the Old Sim by punt distance (and one of the higher players was McCormick) and he has the single highest ratio of punts inside the 20 of all of them, by 2.5%. The only players who have an argument to be better are Dean Jackson (lower ratio of punts inside the 20, higher average) a player who straddled the line between old and new sim punter, and a bunch of players punting in the significantly more advantageous new sim. When I did a breakdown of every notable kicker/punter a little over a full year ago, there was a single player who managed to be in the S or A tier in both punting and kicking (who wasn't McCormick with only a 5 year career) and that was Alex D. Only 3 other people managed to be both a B tier or higher Punter and Kicker. And Alex D was the only person other than McCormick who I put as the S tier kicker.
NERO ALEXANDER
User: @shadyshoelace
YKW (S15 - S27)
DE
Unanimous Inductee? NO
-------------
2x Ultimus Champion (S23, S26)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Defensive Lineman of the Year (S17)
1x Defensive End of the Year (S25)
5x Pro Bowler (S16, S17, S18, S20, S25)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#1 Career DEF TFL (141.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#3 Season DEF TFL (S25 - 23.00)
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GAME RECORDS
#4 Game DEF TFL (S17W5 - 5.00)
#22 Game DEF TFL (S25W5 - 4.00)
#22 Game DEF TFL (S25W11 - 4.00)
#11 Game DEF FF (S23W6 - 2.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#5 Career DEF TFL (10.00)
#17 Career DEF FF (2.00)
#7 Career DEF FR (2.00)
#1 Career DEF Blk FG (1.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#22 Season DEF TFL (S21 - 3.00)
Overall Statistics: 563 tackles, 141 TFLs, 58 sacks, 10 FFs, 4 FRs
Among DEs, Alexander played 169 games and is only truly excellent at the less important stats in my mind: he's 4th in tackles, 1st in tackles for loss (by a kind of insane 24), a bad T-32nd in sacks, T-25th in FFs, T-34th in FRs. Thankfully, less important doesn't mean not important. Nero only had a single season where he reached double digit sacks, but he did reach double digit TFLs for over half of his career.
Going year by year, Nero's rookie season was bad; 6 TFLs and 3 sacks meant that he was one of the worse DEs in the league. His sophomore year was much better, with 10 TFLs, 6 sacks, and a forced fumble. Only 3 DEs were definitely better and as such this was an easy Pro Bowl. S17 was his DLotY award, and it's the first time this part that I'm going to come right out and say that a Hall of Famer didn't deserve an award they received. Sacks are a little under twice as important as TFLs, and as such when Nero Alexander managed 16 TFLs and 3 sacks, this actually wasn't even a top 2 DE season; Kuusela managed 15 sacks and a safety, and Marc Spector II managed 9 TFLs, 7 sacks, a FF, and a safety. I can easily say both of those are better, as well as at least one if not two separate DT seasons. Far from winning DLotY, this wasn't even a 1st team All Pro season at DE! It was at least Pro Bowl worthy, though.
S18 was yet another Pro Bowl season from Nero, but it's honestly not all that good; 9 TFLs, 4 sacks, 1 FF, 27 tackles, at least 6 better DEs if not more this season. This was a lower down Pro Bowl from Nero, and is really close to me just considering it a bad berth. S19 saw 10 TFLs but 2 sacks, and a double digit number of better DEs that season. S20 was a return to the Pro Bowl for Nero, with 12 TFLs, 3 sacks, and 1/2 FF/FRs; I think he was the 4th best DE this season and an easy Pro Bowler. S21 was a bad season, on the other hand, even with 2 forced fumbles as Nero was unable to manage more than 7 TFLs and a single sack. There were yet again a double digit number of better DEs on the season.
S22 was a non-Pro Bowl season from Alexander, but it was actually the best season of his career up until this point, with 13 TFLs, 5 sacks, and 2 FFs. I think he actually deserved to make the Pro Bowl here, with only 5 or 6 better DEs. Unfortunately, 4 of those were in the NSFC, so Alexander ended up missing out due to how skewed things were. Incredibly, S23 was an even better season, with 6 more tackles, 3 more TFLs and a recovered fumble on top of his already great S22. He absolutely should have made the Pro Bowl this year, with only 3 better DEs in the entire league by my quick analysis. S24 was arguably Alexander's best season yet, with 10 sacks for the first time in his career, albeit only 9 TFLs and no FF/FRs. By my count, there's 4 definitely better DEs, 2 DEs that look like LBs with a ton more tackles and PDs than would possibly be expected than otherwise, and maybe a couple others who might have an argument. I think Nero was the 3rd or 4th best DE in his conference and thus deserved to make the Pro Bowl this season.
S25 was Alexander's DEotY season, and this time it was absolutely deserved. 7 sacks, a massive 23 TFLs, and a forced fumble as a cherry on top. Best DE season easily, there's not really anyone even close. S26 was another nice season from Alexander, though it barely missed the Pro Bowl: 9 TFLs and 7 sacks. There were about 7 or 8 better DEs this season, so this just barely missed the Pro Bowl. S27 was not a great season, with only 2 sacks and 1 TFL.
Overall, I think Alexander ends up being...about the same in terms of awards. I don't think he deserved the DLotY in S17, but he deserved to make the Pro Bowl in S22 and just got unlucky, and just flat out deserved the Pro Bowl in S23. He even arguably deserved a Pro Bowl in S26, albeit a low down one. That's 1 DEotY award, but 7 or 8 Pro Bowls. Considering his not all time great but still excellent stats, Nero is still one of the greatest DEs of all time, though he's definitely not the greatest DE from the Wraiths. That's only because the Wraiths have a stranglehold over the greatest DEs which is only outmatched by a couple other teams' strangleholds over positions, such as the Otters over the greatest QBs, or the Outlaws over the greatest RBs, or funnily enough the Wraiths over the greatest CBs.
FORREST GUMP
User: @TomHanks
NOLA (S16 - S27)
RB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
-------------
1x Ultimus Champion (S21)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Running Back of the Year (S18)
1x Performance of the Year (S18)
1x Offensive Player of the Year (S18)
2x Returner of the Year (S19, S20)
7x Pro Bowler (S16, S17, S18, S19, S20, S21, S22)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#13 Career Rush Att (2497.00)
#13 Career Rush Yds (10504.00)
#22 Career ST PRYds (1651.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#5 Career ST PR_TD (5.00)
#21 Career ST PR (185.00)
#12 Career AllPurpose Yds (21205.00)
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SEASON RECORDS
#1 Season ST KRLng (S20 - 108.00)
#18 Season ST KR_TD (S20 - 1.00)
#4 Season ST PR_TD (S19 - 2.00)
#4 Season ST PR_TD (S21 - 2.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S20 - 1.00)
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GAME RECORDS
#1 Game ST KRLng (S20W1 - 108.00)
#12 Game Scrimmage Yds (S18W2 - 248.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#9 Career Rush Att (203.00)
#7 Career Rush Yds (926.00)
#7 Career Rush TD (7.00)
#10 Career ST KR (22.00)
#10 Career ST KRYds (653.00)
#7 Career ST PRYds (192.00)
#25 Career ST KRLng (48.00)
#23 Career ST PRLng (21.00)
#3 Career ST PR (24.00)
#4 Career AllPurpose Yds (2179.00)
#5 Career Scrimmage Yds (1334.00)
#22 Career Points (66.00)
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POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#7 Season Rush Att (S21 - 64.00)
#3 Season Rush Yds (S21 - 299.00)
#18 Season ST KR (S19 - 7.00)
#19 Season ST KRYds (S21 - 197.00)
#21 Season ST PRYds (S21 - 75.00)
#7 Season ST PR (S20 - 9.00)
#7 Season ST PR (S21 - 9.00)
#1 Season AllPurpose Yds (S21 - 745.00)
#1 Season Scrimmage Yds (S21 - 473.00)
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POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#12 Game Rush TD (S24W17 - 2.00)
#10 Game Rec Avg (S21W16 - 39.67)
#5 Game ST PR (S20W14 - 6.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S21W16 - 4.00)
#12 Game ST KRAvg (S21W14 - 47.00)
#4 Game AllPurpose Yds (S21W16 - 297.00)
#18 Game AllPurpose Yds (S22W14 - 262.00)
#2 Game Scrimmage Yds (S21W16 - 221.00)
Overall Statistics: 10,504 rushing yards, 4.21 ypc, 70 rush TDs
409 receptions, 3,681 receiving yards, 25 receiving TDs
Gump has pretty average stats for a Hall of Fame RB from the old sim; both in terms of yards and efficiency he's near the middle of the pack. Overall, Gump has the 13th most carries, the 16th most yards, the T-37th most TDs, and the 104th highest yards per carry; among old sim HOF RBs he ranks 4th of 10 (or 11 if you count Boss Tweed and his 3.55 yards per carry as a Hall of Fame RB, as opposed to a tumor on a Hall of Fame LB's career). Decent stats, minus a strangely low TD total that was well short of average for a Hall of Famer. As far as passing is concerned, he's actually above average for Old Sim Hall of Fame RBs; 4th in yards, 2nd in touchdowns.
Gump didn't start out as the best RB in the league or anything, but he was one of the best in his rookie S16 season, with 4.20 yards per carry, 8 touchdowns, and just under 1100 rushing yards; I think overall I'd rank him 3rd behind Marquise Brown and Sam Torenson, though he does have an argument to be better than Torenson (similar rushing efficiency, but Torenson was a completely awful receiver and while Gump wasn't good, he did have some production in that category). Easy Pro Bowl, flirts with 1st Team. S17 was not quite as good, he got 10 touchdowns but slightly less yards and only managed a 4.01 ypc. There were 4 definitely better RBs, and a trio of other RBs who have varying levels of claims to be better (all of which I at least somewhat agree with), but Gump managed to maintain the luck of the draw, and deserved his Pro Bowl spot because only 2 RBs of those 7 were in the ASFC.
S18 immediately makes me start to ponder things, such as: Does Gump deserve the Pro Bowl for this season? There's no way he deserved the RBotY or the OPOY he actually got; this was a season with a 4.05 ypc that only won any awards because it led the league by over 100 yards rushing (1380, over 100 yards per game) and had 11 touchdowns (2nd to another player with 14 TDs but also only 4 ypc). What do you guys think is more important, 400 yards and 4 touchdowns? Or being nearly half a yard better per carry? Because for me, it's no contest; Slim Shady's 4.53 season with just under 1000 yards and 7 TDs was definitely better than Gump. Overall, this was arguably the 3rd best RB season this year (I also like Torenson having 110 less yards, 3 less touchdowns, but being 0.2 ypc better), in an all around bad season for RBs. It's not even like Gump had an amazing receiving year to make up for being only 4 yards per carry; was S16-20 just the ISFL equivalent of the era where Baseball voters got attached to wins, saves, and RBIs? Because it feels like I've complained significantly more about the major awards in this time period than before, and hopefully since. Overall, Gump deserves the Pro Bowl this season, but despite this being his his highest volume total, I'd still say it's a below average season from his opening 7 seasons that all made the Pro Bowl.
S19, for example, was a significantly better season in my mind, with 1200 yards, 8 TDs, and 4.48 ypc. Ironically enough, this is a year where I think Gump might have been a better RB than the actual winner of RBotY and the OPOY, though I do like this Ludicolo Bigby season more than Gump's S18. The biggest argument against Gump was probably that Marcella Toriki in the same backfield managed 1000 yards, 7 touchdowns, and was seemingly two tenths of a yard better per carry, though she actually only had a 4.55. I think Gump was either the best or 2nd best RB in the league this season, maybe 3rd if you really stretch, but I think I'd have him 2nd, mainly because Bigby was too efficient on the receiving end compared to Gump. Still an easy Pro Bowl. S20 saw Gump be the 2nd best RB on the season, behind someone who will be covered later on in this part, with 950 yards, 4.16 ypc, and 10 touchdowns. Just a Pro Bowl back then, but this would be the 2nd straight year where I'd call him a 1st team All Pro.
S21 was a similar season to S19, except arguably worse: Forrest Gump managed 1000 yards, 4.46 ypc, and 7 touchdowns, which would overall be the 3rd best RB on the season, except for the fact that he shared the backfield with Marcella Toriki, who managed just under 900 yards, 7 touchdowns, and most notably 4.75 ypc. If Toriki being more slightly more efficient than Gump helped sink Gump out of RBotY talks, this season, where she was significantly more efficient, might knock Gump out of the equivalent of a 2nd team All Pro slot. It still wouldn't keep him out of the Pro Bowl though. S22 was Gump's final Pro Bowl, and the most efficient season of his career: 4.60 ypc, 1100 yards, only 4 touchdowns, but that wasn't enough to keep Gump from being the 4th best RB on the season.
That was the last season where Gump was the primary RB in the NOLA backfield; funnily enough, he spent S23 ruining any chance that Toriki was a good RB by being half a yard better per carry; Gump led the entire RB position in yards per carry with 4.48 ypc, though with only 900 yards and 4 TDs Gump did not manage a Pro Bowl; I might actually argue that he deserved to make one, though. S24 and S25 were bad seasons as RB2, with under 3.9 ypc and under 800 yards, and S26 and S27 were both nonseasons as the RB3 in NOLA's backfield.
I have called Gump the Frank Gore of the ISFL in the past, though I believe Frank Gore should easily waltz into the Hall of Fame in the NFL so I don't really mean that as an insult. Gump never really had a season where he was truly excellent compared to the rest of the field; he maybe has a season where he could have been the best RB, but I don't think I would argue he was actually the best, he had a couple seasons where he'd make a 1st team All Pro as the 2nd best RB, and he made 7 straight Pro Bowls to begin his career, none of which were undeserved, and only started missing the Pro Bowl when he got moved to the 2nd spot in the NOLA backfield. He even had an argument to make it in his first season as an RB2. Despite having a RBotY (and an OPOY) where I don't have him as the best RB (and I'd argue not even 2nd best), Gump still waltzes into the Hall in my book. That being said, this is a particular ballot where I can definitely say Gump was not the best player at his position on the ballot, despite receiving more votes than the other guy.
QUENTON BODE
User: @terriblehippo
NOLA (S15 - S27)
LB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
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1x Ultimus Champion (S21)
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AWARDS
4x Pro Bowler (S18, S19, S20, S23)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#2 Career DEF Tck (1441.00)
#22 Career DEF Blk P (1.00)
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SEASON RECORDS
#2 Season DEF Tck (S23 - 154.00)
#5 Season DEF Tck (S25 - 153.00)
#3 Season DEF Blk P (S26 - 1.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#19 Game DEF Tck (S17W13 - 16.00)
#19 Game DEF Tck (S22W5 - 16.00)
#19 Game DEF Tck (S25W15 - 16.00)
#11 Game DEF FF (S22W5 - 2.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#13 Career DEF Tck (88.00)
#7 Career DEF FF (3.00)
Overall Statistics: 1,441 tackles, 23 TFLs, 39 sacks, 60 PDs, 8 INTs, 19 FFs, 11 FRs
Behold my field of stats other than tackles and see that it is barren. Bode is basically the exact player I was thinking about when I said that I'm not the biggest fan of people who were great tacklers but did absolutely nothing else. Bode in particular is 2nd all time in tackles, but among LBs ranks T-118 in TFLs, T-124 in sacks, T-94th in PDs, T-61st in INTs, T-44th in FFs, and T-31st in FRs. Considering literally only one LB ever had more opportunities to get more FFs I'm not all that impressed by those totals, and that trio of Sack/TFL/PD stat is particularly catastrophic in my view. So far, the other people who didn't have a ton of sacks or TFLs at LB managed to be great at PDs; O'Sullivan is 5th, Selich is T-6th, Roenick is T-29th, even Brian Mills is T-49th, and all of them ALSO have more sacks. This might be the single worst set of volume stats in the entire Hall, and it's attached to a player with only 4 Pro Bowls and no better awards.
Bode's rookie season was arguably the 4th best season of his career; he managed 3 sacks, 3 TFLs, 1 FF, 2 PDs, and a pick. There were a double digit number of better LB seasons, and thus Bode missed the Pro Bowl. S16 was slightly worse: 2 sacks, 2 TFLs, 3 PDs, 1/1 FF/FR. This made Bode one of the least impactful LBs in the league as far as impact plays were concerned. S17 saw Bode lead the league in tackles for the first time in his career, and manage 2/2 FF/FR, but the rest of his impact plays were 1 sack and 3 PDs. Yet again, there were a double digit number of better LB seasons. S18 saw Bode make the Pro Bowl for the first time in his career, although I think it was actually slightly worse than his rookie season: 1 sack, 4 TFLs, 3 PDs, a pick, and a forced fumble. There were arguably not a double digit number of better LBs this season, but there were at least 4 better LBs in his conference and thus I do not think this was a deserved Pro Bowl.
S19 saw Bode return to the Pro Bowl, with one of his 3 seasons that had more than 3 sacks: 5 sacks, 1 TFL, 7 PDs, 2 picks, and 2/1 FF/FRs. This was the first season of Bode's career that didn't have 100 tackles, but it was by far his best so far. While this wasn't the best LB season ever, there were only 5 better ones this year and as such Bode deserved his first Pro Bowl. S20 was a mixed bag, back to below average impact plays, but with some turnovers this time: 1 sack, 2 TFLs, 3 PDs, a pick, and 2/1 FF/FRs. Unfortunately, this was a season where there were 5 better LBs in his conference, and about 8 or 9 better overall. I think Bode deserved to (just barely) miss this Pro Bowl.
S21 saw Bode return to form, but when your form is like Bode's, this isn't a positive thing; he had 3 sacks, 3 TFLs, 3 PDs, and 1 FF all season. Yet again, there were a double digit number of better LB seasons. S22 was better, he only had 2 sacks, 2 TFLs, and 3 PDs, but he also managed 3 FFs and a fumble recovery. I think there were about 8 to 10 better LBs this season, so this was yet again a deserved miss, but I think it was closer to making it than S21. S23 was Bode's final Pro Bowl of his career, with 154 tackles, 2 sacks, 5 PDs, 2 INTs, and 1/2 FF/FRs. This wasn't the best LB season or anything, but it was at least the best season in his ballpark of tackles; I think there were only 6 better LBs on the year, and only 3 of those were in his conference. Bode deserved this Pro Bowl.
S24, on the other hand, was just a bad season; 1 sack, 1 TFL, 6 PDs, 1 FR. There are only 3 LBs who I think have even an argument to be worse on the season, there are over 20 better LBs. S25 was significantly better, he nearly matched his tackle total from S23 with 153, managed 5 sacks, 2 TFLs, 7 PDs, a pick, and 2 FFs. That being said, there were now 14 teams in the league and the expansion meant that there were still a double digit number of LBs who I consider better. S26 was the one year of Bode's career where he managed double digit sacks, and there's an argument that this 10 sack, 1 TFL, 15 PD, 2/2 FF/FR, 1 blocked punt season was the best of Bode's entire career. Honestly, I think it deserved the Pro Bowl, I think it was the 6th or 7th best season among LBs this year, and I think he was a top 4 LB in his Conference. S27 was a nothing season.
Bode doesn't belong in the Hall. He was great at tackling over his career, but that's the only thing he was great at. He was mediocre at pass defense, he was flat out bad at everything else. It is impressive in all the wrong ways to play 184 games as a Linebacker in DDSPF and manage less than 40 sacks. This isn't even a middle linebacker thing, literally every other MLB I've covered in this project had significantly more PDs and sacks in significantly less games than Bode. As far as I can tell, no other LB in league history played anywhere near as many games as Bode and contributed so little outside of tackles. Even his decent seeming FF/FR stats have to reckon with the fact that literally nobody else in league history not named Bender Rodriguez had more attempts to force a fumble. He made 2 of his Pro Bowls on merit, should have made a 3rd, and even if I say he should have made 5 out of 13 Pro Bowls that's not enough to get a guy with this dry of a stat sheet into the Hall. At least the other players like Quaid and Rodriguez who are high up in tackles have other parts of their legacy to be proud of outside of 1300+ tackles, at least Selich and Roenick had a peak. Bode had more seasons where he wasn't a top 10 LB than seasons where he would even be allowed to attend the Pro Bowl with a ticket, and had no seasons as a top 5 LB. NO.
MATHIAS HANYADI
User: @CLG Rampage
YKW (S19 - S25)
AZ (S25 - S25)
BAL (S26 - S27)
RB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
-------------
1x Ultimus Champion (S23)
-------------
AWARDS
3x Running Back of the Year (S20, S22, S23)
2x Offensive Player of the Year (S20, S22)
1x Most Valuable Player (S23)
1x Offensive Performance of the Year (S23)
6x Pro Bowler (S20, S21, S22, S23, S24, S26)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#22 Career Rush Att (2153.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#10 Career ST PRLng (88.00)
#19 Career ST KRAvg (28.39)
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SEASON RECORDS
#20 Season ST PRYds (S23 - 437.00)
#1 Season ST KRLng (S26 - 108.00)
#10 Season ST PRLng (S25 - 88.00)
#2 Season AllPurpose Yds (S23 - 3463.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#18 Game Rush Avg (S27W3 - 32.00)
#7 Game ST PRYds (S23W3 - 146.00)
#11 Game ST PRYds (S25W1 - 136.00)
#1 Game ST KRLng (S26W6 - 108.00)
#10 Game ST PRLng (S25W1 - 88.00)
#17 Game Points (S23W10 - 24.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#6 Career Rush Att (216.00)
#3 Career Rush Yds (991.00)
#13 Career Other Sacks Allowed (3.00)
#15 Career AllPurpose Yds (1560.00)
#7 Career Scrimmage Yds (1299.00)
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POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#8 Season Rush Att (S21 - 62.00)
#8 Season Rush Yds (S21 - 276.00)
#9 Season Other Sacks Allowed (S21 - 2.00)
#11 Season Scrimmage Yds (S21 - 372.00)
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POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#16 Game AllPurpose Yds (S23W19 - 268.00)
Overall Statistics: 9,159 rushing yards, 4.25 ypc, 72 rushing TDs
420 receptions, 3,599 receiving yards, 20 receiving TDs
From a player who got 7/9 votes on the S31 ballot who I want out of the Hall, to a player who got 7/9 votes on this ballot who I wonder how they only got 7 votes, Mathias Hanyadi is maybe the 3rd best Old Sim RB after Marquise Brown and Owen Taylor. He's 23rd in attempts (I'm not sure why the bot says 22nd...maybe it hasn't updated for Ace Anderson passing him this year?) 28th in rushing yards, T-33rd in rushing TDs, all while boasting an exceptional yards per carry for the old sim, 96th overall. I wouldn't be the most surprised if it was the single highest before he was thrown onto a Worst Team of All Time contender for the final 2 seasons of his career. Hanyadi also managed a decent amount of receiving production, with the 4th most receptions of any mostly old sim RB, the 3rd most yards, and the T-6th most touchdowns.
Hanyadi started his career with a single lackluster year in S19: just under 800 yards, 3.97 ypc, 10 touchdowns, along with 400 more yards and 3 touchdowns receiving, not good, not pro bowl worthy, and especially notable that his fellow rookie backfield-mate managed 4.6 yards per carry at the same time. Hanyadi's reign over the RB position came immediately afterwards, though. S20 was a year where Hanyadi led the league in efficiency with 4.31 ypc and touchdowns with 11, while managing 1100 yards, 3rd most in the league. Hanyadi was even the most productive pure RB receiving, with 400 yards and 4 more touchdowns. This won RBotY pretty handily, and managed OPOY. Considering how bad the QB seasons were (this was a year where the best QB seasons was a mostly pure passer with a 91.5 passer rating and a dual threat QB whose passer rating was 86.1, as a reminder), there's an argument that this could have been the MVP; it wasn't often around this time period that the highest touchdown RB was also the most efficient. The other option was a receiver with over 100 yards per game and 12 touchdowns in Ahri Espeeyeeseetee. Any of those were decent options, so I'm not going to complain about Hanyadi receiving it.
S21 was the down year of this era for Hanyadi; he was merely a Pro Bowler instead of a major award winner. Overall, he managed 1000 yards on 4.33 ypc, 7 touchdowns, plus 550 yards and another touchdown through the air. I think Hanyadi was the 2nd or 3rd best RB in his conference, which I believe means this pro bowl was deserved, and the 5th or 6th best RB overall. S22 saw Hanyadi return to being the best RB, and this was a doozy of a season; 1280 yards on the ground, most, 7 TDs, 2nd most, 4.78 ypc, 2nd best, with another 440 yards and 4 touchdowns receiving at over 10 yards per reception. There was no competition here; Hanyadi was the best RB and I think he had a better argument to be MVP over Bigsby than anyone else had to be OPOY over him (to be clear, I don't think he has a good argument over Bigsby). S23 was maybe not the best season of Hanyadi's career, he only managed a 4.42 ypc and was 2.5 yards per reception worse than his prior year. However, it was his single most productive by quite a ways; he managed over 1300 yards on the ground and over 500 receiving, along with 16 total touchdowns. No player was more efficient in the league this year, and while one player was almost as efficient in rushing and managed more yards, nobody came even close to his touchdown total. Considering this was one of the worst seasons ever in terms of QB play, I think the MVP was justified.
That was it for Hanyadi's peak, but it was quite a peak. Hanyadi managed to make the Pro Bowl in S24 with 4.45 ypc and 1100 yards, but only 5 touchdowns, along with nearly 400 more yards and a touchdown receiving on great efficiency for the time. I think he was arguably the best RB that year, he was flat out the most efficient RB on the year, and only didn't win because he managed 6 total TDs compared to the winner of RBotY's 13. I like Hanyadi there. S25 saw Hanyadi act as part of a running back by committee and thus was not really up for a Pro Bowl. Meanwhile, S26 was kind of a travesty, Mathias managed only 3.73 ypc, and I don't care if he got 9 touchdowns combined and had the 3rd most rushing yards in the league, I see at least 3 better RBs in his conference and another 7 in the ASFC; this was a bad season, and did not deserve the Pro Bowl. S27 was a bad RB2 season on a horrendous team, and is most notable as such for continuing Hanyadi's late career slide of yards per carry. Before being moved to a bad Baltimore squad for the final 2 seasons of his career, Hanyadi had a 4.38 yards per carry, which would have been the highest among all Old Sim Hall of Fame RBs.
Hanyadi spent 4 seasons of his career being at worst the 2nd best RB in the league, winning major awards in 3 seasons and as such could probably have waltzed to the Hall even if every other season of his career was as bad as his time spent on Baltimore. He wasn't that bad outside of, well, his time on Baltimore, and as such is an RB I'm more surprised only got 7/9 votes instead of the unanimous 9 I think he deserved.
DERMOT LAVELLE JR.
User: @White Cornerback
AUS (S16 - S25)
BAL (S26 - S28)
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
1x Ultimus Champion (S20)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Cornerback of the Year (S24)
1x Returner of the Year (S24)
7x Pro Bowler (S17, S18, S19, S20, S22, S23, S24)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#1 Career ST KR (457.00)
#1 Career ST KRYds (11250.00)
#2 Career ST PRYds (3378.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#8 Career ST KR_TD (3.00)
#5 Career ST PR_TD (5.00)
#1 Career ST PR (370.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#1 Season ST KRLng (S25 - 108.00)
#3 Season ST KR_TD (S24 - 2.00)
#4 Season ST PR_TD (S17 - 2.00)
#18 Season ST PR (S25 - 43.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#6 Game ST KR (S17W6 - 7.00)
#22 Game ST PRYds (S20W11 - 122.00)
#23 Game ST PRYds (S21W13 - 120.00)
#1 Game ST KRLng (S25W16 - 108.00)
#4 Game ST PR (S20W3 - 8.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S19W2 - 6.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S23W7 - 6.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S25W9 - 6.00)
#14 Game ST KRAvg (S24W12 - 103.00)
#2 Game ST PRAvg (S24W8 - 83.00)
#4 Game ST PRAvg (S19W11 - 80.00)
#7 Game ST PRAvg (S17W9 - 78.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#2 Career ST KR (28.00)
#3 Career ST KRYds (696.00)
#21 Career ST KRLng (58.00)
#24 Career ST PR (10.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#18 Season DEF PD (S23 - 6.00)
#7 Season ST KR (S23 - 8.00)
#18 Season ST KR (S22 - 7.00)
#13 Season ST KRYds (S23 - 214.00)
#24 Season ST KRLng (S22 - 58.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#24 Game DEF PD (S23W19 - 4.00)
#24 Game ST KRLng (S22W14 - 58.00)
Overall Statistics: 751 tackles, 200 PDs, 26 INTs, 2 INTs, 3 FFs
Lavelle Jr is by no means his father, though I'm pretty sure he should waltz to the Hall regardless. Jr is currently 31st in PDs, which, according to the not always correct Hall of Fame post, was 2nd to his father at the time of his retirement. The bigger issue with Lavelle Jr, at least to me, is his strangely low INT and TD total for a guy with as many PDs as he has; 26 on its face is a decent chunk but it's only T-30th, despite playing for 187 games in total, 5 more than his father. I think he was 10th among CBs at the time of his retirement despite having played more games than anyone else in league history at CB. Only 2 TDs (T-88th) and 3 FFs (T-127th) are such low totals that Astro has matched that touchdown total through 10 games in S50 and 3 different CBs (Devin Jones, Paul Dosza, and Luigi Numberone) have better Fumble stats through 10 games than throughout Jr's entire career. Granted different sims, but there is a limit there to the point that I'm very certain those particular marks are bad even for an old sim CB. The other big part of Lavelle's career is that he's the single best return man ever, which is something I'm not covering all that much and might get Lavelle into the Hall even if his career was bad.
S16, Jr's rookie season, wasn't all that great, only 8 PDs and 1 pick was bad even for the time, but it was his rookie year. S17 was much better, not Pro Bowl worthy for CB play, but 15 PDs and 2 picks was significantly better. I have to assume that Lavelle got his Pro Bowl this year because of 2 punt return touchdowns, not for a season where he was the 10th best CB. S18 was actually a regression for Jr, he managed 14 PDs and a forced fumble, nothing else. Well over 10 better CBs on the year, this was hopefully a returner pro bowl. S19 was a better year, but still middling; only 13 PDs and a pick. Due to the performance of everyone else, this was arguably a bottom 5 CB performance on the year.
S20, thank goodness, was an actual great year Jr, the first of his career. 19 PDs, 3 INTs, a FF, and a TD. I think Jr was the 2nd best CB on the season, just behind Hornbacher. S21 was an awful season, with only 10 PDs; this was a year where I think Jr was a bottom 5 CB. Thankfully that was the worst season of his career, S22 was back to a good season. 14 PDs, 3 INTs. This wasn't an amazing CB season, but I think it ends up with a lower down Pro Bowl as about the 7th or 8th best CB season, and the 3rd or 4th best season in his conference. S23 was a new peak season with 15 PDs and 5 INTs; I think it was the 3rd best CB season in an overall great season for CBs. And S24 was the best season of Jr's entire career. 20 PDs, 6 INTs, and a touchdown. Easily the CBotY, and considering this season managed 3 return touchdowns on top of it, it feels like he might have had an argument for a major award, maybe DPOY, maybe even MVP; as is it just went home with the CBotY.
That was the last Pro Bowl of Jr's career in reality; S25 was an OK season but not a great one with 17 PDs but only 1 INT. Due to a bunch of great seasons this year, there were over 20 better seasons. S26 was yet another bad season for Jr, with only 15 PDs. This was a bottom 5 CB season overall. S27 was actually one of the best seasons of Jr's career, with 23 PDs and 2 INTs, but the move to the new sim meant there were still well over a double digit number of better CB seasons this year. S28 was similar with decent stats for Jr's career, but bad overall placement with 17 PDs and 2 INTs; there were over 20 better CB seasons, including 2 better CB seasons on his own team (and I seem to remember Dermot being CB2 and not CB 3 that year).
Jr has a decent peak; over a 5 season stretch he was the best CB once and a top 3 CB 2 other times, with another season he was pro bowl worthy. On the other hand, the majority of Dermot's seasons were not great, whether we're talking about for the time or in total, and only deserving to make 4 Pro Bowls over 13 seasons is REALLY really rough. There were literally as many seasons where I described Jr as a bottom 5 CB on the year as seasons where he deserved to make the Pro Bowl as a CB. He's kind of a compiler at best. That being said, he is the most productive returner of all time. Even if he's not a slam dunk player in the slightest as a CB, the fact that he was so successful returning means that he gets into the Hall regardless, by basically being a significantly better version of Devin Hester (by actually being an OK CB). As far as CB performance is concerned, I lean more towards saying Jr doesn't belong in the Hall, but he wasn't just a CB. That makes this spot deserved, despite his shaky play at his primary position.
ASHLEY OWENS
User: @run_CMC
AUS (S17 - S18)
COL (S19 - S24)
NYS (S25 - S27)
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
1x Ultimus Champion (S22)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Offensive Rookie of the Year (S17)
1x Offensive Player of the Year (S25)
1x Running Back of the Year (S25)
5x Pro Bowler (S18, S19, S20, S24, S25)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#15 Career Rush Att (2361.00)
#5 Career ST KR (329.00)
#6 Career ST KRYds (8057.00)
#20 Career ST PRYds (1690.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#20 Career ST KR_TD (2.00)
#18 Career ST PR (192.00)
#2 Career AllPurpose Yds (25119.00)
#16 Career Scrimmage Yds (15372.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#9 Season Rush Att (S25 - 397.00)
#8 Season ST KR (S25 - 50.00)
#16 Season ST KRYds (S25 - 1301.00)
#1 Season ST KRLng (S24 - 108.00)
#18 Season ST KR_TD (S24 - 1.00)
#18 Season ST KR_TD (S25 - 1.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S21 - 1.00)
#1 Season AllPurpose Yds (S25 - 3597.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#1 Game ST KRLng (S24W12 - 108.00)
#1 Game ST KR_TD (S24W12 - 1.00)
#1 Game ST KR_TD (S25W1 - 1.00)
#3 Game ST PR_TD (S21W5 - 1.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S22W12 - 6.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S26W4 - 6.00)
#22 Game ST PRAvg (S25W6 - 69.00)
#10 Game AllPurpose Yds (S25W9 - 374.00)
#22 Game AllPurpose Yds (S25W15 - 341.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#3 Career Rush Att (231.00)
#8 Career Rush Yds (857.00)
#23 Career Rush TD (5.00)
#2 Career ST KR (28.00)
#6 Career ST KRYds (690.00)
#3 Career ST PRYds (219.00)
#3 Career ST PR (24.00)
#5 Career AllPurpose Yds (2133.00)
#10 Career Scrimmage Yds (1224.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#18 Season AllPurpose Yds (S22 - 463.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#4 Game Rush Att (S21W14 - 35.00)
#8 Game Rush Att (S23W18 - 33.00)
#13 Game ST KR (S18W14 - 5.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S22W14 - 4.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S23W18 - 4.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S24W19 - 4.00)
#9 Game AllPurpose Yds (S23W18 - 286.00)
Overall Statistics: 9,109 rushing yards, 3.86 ypc, 71 rushing touchdowns
665 receiving yards, 6,263 receiving yards, 30 receiving touchdowns
OK, let's go over the records. Ashley Owens is 15th in attempts, T-29th in yards (I bet you can tell what I'm going to complain about), 36th in touchdowns rushing. In receiving, he's 3rd in receptions, 4th in yards, and T-17th in touchdowns. Ashley Owens is 2nd in all purpose yards, which I don't really care about. I don't think 1st is in the Hall or even close. In scrimmage rankings, which is more important, Owens is 16th in yards and T-31st in touchdowns. The big albatross hanging over Owens is that yards per carry. He ranks 166th all time, one spot above Reg Mackworthy, who as you may recall had to play about half of his career in a horrendous period for RBs. Owens, by contrast, played in a time period with multiple great, Hall of Fame worthy RBs, with marks well over 4 yards per carry.
Ashley Owens started his career with the 2nd greatest year of his career by rushing efficiency. With 4.05 ypc, 4 touchdowns, and just under 750 yards per carry. This wasn't even the best season from an Austin RB this year. S18, Owens' first Pro Bowl, was even worse. Sure, Owens managed nearly 700 yards and 2 touchdowns on over 10 yards per reception, but I don't care, because he also ran for 3.52 yards per carry. That's only been an acceptable mark from seasons like 2-5, and he didn't even have a ton of yards, only 623. Go directly to rushing jail, do not pass go, do not collect a Pro Bowl. Hopefully this was for returning? S19 was a better season, but I still hesitate to call it good. Sure, Owens managed over 1000 rushing yards for the first time in his career, added on nearly 600 yards receiving, and managed 14 total touchdowns. However, Owens also ran for 3.80 yards per carry. Last part, I complained about Mendonca making the Pro Bowl in the same year with a BETTER SEASON than this one, and while part of that was due to the RBs in the ASFC being better than the RBs in the NSFC, I think there were a minimum of 3 better RBs, if not 4 or 5; if Owens made the Pro Bowl, it was as literally the worst RB1 in the entire league who just got lucky that one team in his conference ran RBBC; needless to say, as the worst RB1 in the league even if he technically could have made this pro bowl legitimately I'm not counting it for him.
S20 was the 2nd of 3 seasons where Owens ran for at least 4 yards per carry, with 4.04. He managed 900 yards and 7 touchdowns, while adding 500 yards and 2 touchdowns receiving. I am less inclined to immediately dismiss it as a result of managing an OK yards per carry, and overall I think Owens deserved the Pro Bowl this year as the 5th best RB. S21 was a better year than at least one prior Pro Bowl season, but with only 700 yards and 4 touchdowns on 3.92 ypc, even getting 600 yards and 4 touchdowns through the air wasn't enough to tip him into the Pro Bowl for voters. There were a double digit number of better RBs, which is impressive in a season where there were only 10 teams. S22 saw Owens be the 2nd worst RB1 on the year, with only 700 yards and 5 touchdowns on 3.89 ypc. S23 was, incredibly, worse, with 3.56 ypc. Finally, S24 showed the Owens that he could be: 4.41 ypc, just under 900 yards, 7 touchdowns, plus nearly 600 yards and 2 touchdowns receiving. This wasn't the greatest year imaginable, but in my head this would be worthy of a 2nd team All Pro slot and easily deserved the Pro Bowl it got in reality; it was somewhere around the 4th best season in my head.
S25 is the season that got Owens in the Hall. It also is a season that hurt his team every time he touched the ball. In S25, Owens ran for 1542 yards and 6 touchdowns, while adding in 506 and a touchdown receiving. This was on almost guaranteed to be bad receiving efficiency (8.16 yards per reception in a time period where almost nobody completed 60% of their passes, his QB had a yards per reception north of 12 to compare) and was on bad rushing efficiency. Am I supposed to award a player for rushing 397 times when they did so at 3.88 yards per carry? Am I supposed to say this was a Pro Bowl season, or even a good one? Because I will not do so; this deserved to miss the Pro Bowl, because that's what happens when you're in the bottom 4 in terms of efficiency. The fact that this got an OPOY and an RBotY is ridiculous, there is no achievement to running the ball a ton when this is a league with injuries turned off. S26 was a significantly better season, with 12 total touchdowns, over 10 yards per reception, a still bad 3.93 ypc, but since it had just under 1800 yards instead of 2000, the 2nd worst RB1 season by efficiency did not get a Pro Bowl.
S27 is a strange season where Owens managed to get a touchdown on 10% of his carries, but only rush for 2.34 ypc on 71 carries. It was probably bad because he definitely wasn't only being used as a short yardage back, because I'm very certain the sim doesn't have a guaranteed "short yardage back" position.
There might be the smallest bit of Hall of Fame worthiness in playing more games at RB than anyone had prior and finishing 3rd in scrimmage yards and 7th in scrimmage touchdowns. That greatness is not added to in the slightest by being a decent returner for one's entire career and going up to the most all purpose yards, and the 7th most touchdowns. I would like to explore Dante King for a moment: He currently leads in All Purpose Yards, is significantly higher than Owens in both Scrimmage Yards and touchdowns (as well as All Purpose Touchdowns), and managed to have 4.62 yards per carry for his career, which today is top 30 among all RBs. He is not in the Hall because he never had enough volume to have a great peak. Owens is kind of the opposite; he never had the efficiency to have a great peak. He at most deserved 2 Pro Bowls and a year as the 4th best RB.
We do not exist in a league where players get benched for poor performance or not resigned, partly because the league is nowhere near big enough to do that, but also because we can see which players should be better. As such, I really don't find Owens' volume that impressive. Ashley Owens has a single season where he managed more than 4.05 ypc. Ashley Owens managed to be under 3.6 yards per carry 5 times, and only managed to be above 4 yards per carry 3 times. Reg Mackworthy has better marks in every single one of those categories, and that's despite playing 11 seasons total and spending 4 of them in a league where 3.6 yards per carry would have been OPOY worthy. Not only does Ashley Owens not belong, but they make me think that Mako Mendonca might not have been the worst RB in the Hall; at least he has a yards per carry above 4! Heck, he only had 16 less touchdowns from scrimmage over 35 less games.
Owens kind of reminds me of a guy who he lined up behind for a bit. McDummy was great, although not all time great, at rushing as a QB, but I don't feel that was enough to make up for him being the worst passer in the Hall and one of the worst in league history. Owens is almost the exact same, in that he's great but not all time great at receiving at the RB position, but I don't feel that was enough to make up for him being almost exactly as efficient a rusher as Mackworthy without having to play in the worst time in league history to be an RB.
AUSTIN MCCORMICK
User: @Nokazoa
NOLA (S19 - S28)
Unanimous Inductee? YES
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1x Ultimus Champion (S21)
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AWARDS
2x Tight End of the Year (S22, S23)
6x Pro Bowler (S21, S22, S23, S24, S26, S27)
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Important Records
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#3 Career Rec Rec (87.00)
#23 Career Rec Yds (806.00)
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POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#12 Season Rec Rec (S27 - 20.00)
#18 Season Rec Rec (S26 - 18.00)
Overall Statistics: 694 receptions, 7,081 yards, 43 touchdowns
245 pancakes, 3 sacks allowed
Thank goodness for Austin McCormick because otherwise this would be even more negative coverage of the S32 ballot than it already is. McCormick is currently 9th in receptions, 8th in yards, and 9th in touchdowns among TEs, along with being 29th in pancakes and T-58th in Sacks Allowed. Overall, not the greatest receiver we've ever seen at the position, nor the greatest blocker, but at least good if not great in both categories is more than enough. McCormick didn't actually play as long as the previous great TEs (outside of Blaze) due to only playing 10 seasons; he only played 148 games, DiMirio played 168 and L'Alto played 178. At McCormick's induction, he would have had the 5th most yards and the 6th most touchdowns among TEs. He also still has the 3rd most receptions in postseason history, only behind Kotoni Staggs and Verso L'Alto.
Austin's first couple seasons were unexceptional; he wasn't particularly good but he wasn't particularly bad, either. S20 is notable, because while the stats in and of themselves aren't amazing (604 yards, 3 TDs), they make him the 3rd best TE on the year, and what would be an easy Pro Bowl if not for the fact that the only 2 better TEs were in his conference. S21 was the first of Austin's peak stretch, where he made 6/7 Pro Bowls, and while it was well off the pace of Johnny Blaze's final great season, I think Austin was the 2nd best TE this year. S22 saw Austin easily be the best TE, with 900 yards, 5 TDs, and over 13 yards per reception, an impressive number for the TE position at this time. S23 was much more mixed, there was some actual competition this season in the form of Blocksdale Jr and Angler, but I think Austin ends up grading out the best with just under 700 yards and 8 touchdowns; he also happened to be the best blocker of the 3.
S24 and S25 showed that this new era of TEs would be very, very different than the previous eras of DiMirio, L'Alto, and Blaze; nobody would hold dominion over TEotY for too long, there was too much competition now. S24 saw McCormick have a good season with 700 yards and 5 touchdowns, but it was completely blown away by Heath Evans, and thus was only the 2nd best year overall. S25 was statistically superior, with 850 yards and 4 touchdowns, but this was the worst season of Austin's career blocking (27 Pancakes, 2 SAs), and even then Austin was only statistically the 4th best receiving TE this year, with 2 of the better ones also being in the ASFC. S26 saw Austin return to the Pro Bowl, though I personally think it was McCormick's worst season in a long while; just over 650 yards and 5 touchdowns while not managing 10 yards per reception for the first time since S20, means that it would take something special to be up for the Pro Bowl this season. That something special is that one of the 5 TEs that was better was only barely better, and had the benefit of lining up at WR some of the time, which meant Austin managed to sneak in as the 5th best TE on the year and the 2nd best in his conference.
S27 was the lone year where McCormick managed over 1000 yards, but since he only had 2 touchdowns he wasn't up for a TEotY. Still, he was at worst the 4th best TE, I'd have him 3rd, and as such it was an easy Pro Bowl. S28 wasn't the greatest season, but it was about average, and for a 10th season in retirement that's perfectly reasonable. Overall, McCormick ended up sharing space with a number of other TEs, some Hall of Famers, some not, in what was somewhat of a golden age for TEs in the S20s. I feel like a higher number of great TEs played during this period more than any other, and as such McCormick suffers in an all time TE ranking estimation, especially considering I'm not 100% sure he was the single best TE during this period; he never had the era dominance of the previous 3 Hall of Fame TEs, and one of his contemporaries had significantly higher highs and better receiving, at the cost of being probably the worst TE blocker ever. An All Time TE ranking estimation is not what this is, though. It's about whether McCormick belongs in the Hall, and...yes, it's not all that hard of a question for me. Not the greatest TE ever, but retired with an easy claim to be top 5 with everyone else in that top 5 being Hall of Famers themselves, has both the major awards and pro bowls to belong, was the best TE twice and the 2nd best twice, while McCormick probably ends up on the lower end of Hall of Fame TEs, that only speaks to the fact that only the very best TEs can even make it to the Hall. McCormick on his own merits completely deserves it.
Final guy for the part coming up, and it's a doozy.
DAVID RECTOR
User: @ddrector
NOLA (S18 - S27)
CB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
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1x Ultimus Champion (S21)
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AWARDS
1x Defensive Performance of the Year (S22)
1x Defensive Breakout Player of the Year (S22)
1x Defensive Player of the Year (S26)
1x Cornerback of the Year (S26)
2x Pro Bowler (S22, S26)
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Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#22 Career ST PRLng (86.00)
#16 Career ST PR_TD (2.00)
#25 Career ST KRAvg (27.87)
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SEASON RECORDS
#25 Season ST KR (S25 - 46.00)
#10 Season ST KRYds (S25 - 1330.00)
#23 Season ST PRYds (S26 - 426.00)
#23 Season ST PRLng (S26 - 86.00)
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GAME RECORDS
#11 Game DEF PD (S26W1 - 7.00)
#4 Game DEF Int (S22W6 - 3.00)
#6 Game ST KR (S25W12 - 7.00)
#21 Game ST PRYds (S26W3 - 124.00)
#23 Game ST PRLng (S26W3 - 86.00)
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POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#24 Career DEF PD (14.00)
#25 Career ST PRYds (107.00)
#23 Career ST KRLng (49.00)
#13 Career ST PR (14.00)
#20 Career ST KRAvg (33.44)
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POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#9 Season ST KRYds (S26 - 234.00)
#6 Season ST PRYds (S26 - 107.00)
#1 Season ST PR (S26 - 13.00)
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POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#11 Game ST PR (S26W17 - 5.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S26W18 - 4.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S26W19 - 4.00)
#12 Game ST KRAvg (S26W17 - 47.00)
Overall Statistics: 622 tackles, 168 PDs, 31 INTs, 3 TDs, 5 FFs, 1 FR
As far as statistics are concerned, David Rector is a little out of place in the Hall; among all CBs he's T-59th in tackles, T-52nd in PDs (with I believe the single lowest amount for any Hall of Famer at the time of his induction) and a significantly better T-17th in INTs, which happens to be tied with Marc Spector for the 2nd lowest INT total among Hall of Fame CBs at the time of his induction. Technically it's actually tied for lowest considering the only player with less was Dermot Lavelle Jr, who was inducted on the same ballot. Rector is T-55th in defensive TDs, T-92nd in FFs, and is actually in the bottom half of all CBs to ever play the game with only 1 FR; he's T-144th out of 263. One mark in Rector's favor is that he only played 10 seasons, half of which were in the 13 game era, and as such only played 145 total games.
David Rector had a rookie season to forgot, he was the single worst CB in the league in S18 with only 2 PDs and a TFL. S19 was significantly better, with 6 PDs, 3 INTs, 2/1 FF/FR, and 6 sacks, but there were still a double digit number of better CBs in the league this season and thus Rector was not Pro Bowl caliber. S20 was the polar opposite of the prior season for the exact same result; 19 PDs, 1 FF, nothing else; at least 15 better CBs on the year. S21 was even worse with only 15 PDs. Yet again, there were a double digit number of better CBs that season. S22 was the first great season of Rector's career, 17 PDs, 5 INTs. It was Rector's first Pro Bowl, and I think he was the 4th best CB on the season. He wasn't that far off statistically from number 1 either.
S23 was another good season from Rector, with 15 PDs and 5 INTs, overall I think he was the 6th best CB on the year, but with 4 of the better ones coming from the ASFC that meant Rector ended up missing the Pro Bowl with a bit of bad luck. S24 finally saw Rector regress a tiny bit on the INT luck, with 17 PDs, 1 FF, but only 3 INTs; there were 9 or 10 better CBs on the season and Rector missed the Pro Bowl yet again. S25 arguably should have been a better year from Rector; he managed 24 PDs and a FF, but couldn't manage more than 3 INTs. There were, once again, a double digit number of better CBs.
S26 is the year that got Rector into the Hall of Fame. He managed 32 PDs, 7 INTs, and 2 TDs. This was awarded with the DPOY and the CBotY, and there's no argument for either. S27 was seemingly a great season, and for a final season it was great, but it didn't make the Pro Bowl and wasn't particularly close: 21 PDs, 5 INTs, 1 TD. There were 9 better CBs that year and thus it deserved to miss the Pro Bowl.
David Rector may be the most infamous Hall of Famer. I'm pretty sure there's nobody with as few Pro Bowls in the Hall, and while he had a couple other nice seasons, there was only one other season where I think he even had a shot to make the Pro Bowl. He had multiple seasons as one of the worst CBs in the league. His entire candidacy rests on a single season, in which case I'd like to see Cooper Kupp make the Hall of Fame in real life. To make a comparison, my current player's career isn't amazing; I think I'm at best the 2nd best CB in my own draft class, if not 3rd. But in significantly less seasons and significantly less games, I have as many 1st team All Pro seasons as Rector has Pro Bowl seasons, and while neither were as the best CB in the league, I also could possibly make it in this season, which would mean I have as many 1st team All Pro seasons as seasons Rector even had an argument to MAKE a Pro Bowl. Rector had a single season as the equivalent of a 2nd team All Pro and one season as a 1st Team All pro, and while the DPOY is nice I'm not sure it's enough. Rector's stats are not great for a Hall of Famer, his peak is great but it's only a single year, and he only made 2 Pro Bowls. That's not enough to make the Hall in my book, and indeed it doesn't seem like it is in most people's books; I'm not sure there's a single player who is more often talked about as the "undeserving Hall of Famer" than Rector.
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