(S33) PT 4 - HoF

[TomHanks]

Because I am on the Hall of Fame Committee and thus actually vote on who makes it into the Hall, I’m going to interpret this prompt slightly differently since it makes me a bit uncomfortable making a case for someone who I will be looking at objectively and discussing at a later date. Instead of discussion someone who should make it to the Hall as is, I’m going to look at someone who was on pace to make the Hall were it not for the career being cut short, Deon Taylor. His stats don’t jump out at you just to look at them in the modern era, but for the first 5 years of his career he was average 21 PDs per season which was an immense feat at that time. Had he played a full 13 seasons at that rate he would have surpassed Dermot Lavelle by a wide margin. His S19 season was an all-time top CB year with 27 PDs (next closest player had 21 for a frame of reference) and 5 interceptions which topped all CBs that year. At the time of his retirement, he was averaging 17.75 pass deflections per season. Had he played 13 seasons at that rate he would have 231 PDs on his career, 39 more than Lavelle Jr and only 18 fewer than Lavelle Sr. He also managed to help change the New Orleans Second Line from a bottom tier team to a championship winning team with his on-field play, winning 1 ring in his 8 seasons. It is truly a shame he retired when he did, otherwise, he was comfortably on pace for a Hall of Fame career.