Worst player in HOVG? Best player not in?

Discuss candidates for the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the PFRA's Hall of Very Good
Brian wolf
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Re: Worst player in HOVG? Best player not in?

Post by Brian wolf »

Had to revisit this post ...

Though I mentioned Simms as being the best not in the HOVG, theyre are probably better candidates like George Andrie, Coy Bacon, Cedrick Hardman, Carroll Dale, Wesley Walker, Stanley Morgan and I am sure plenty of others.

Carroll Dale might be the most underrated receiver ever.
He helped rejuvenate the Packers after their postseason misses in 63 and 64, helping them win three straight NFL Championships and the first two SB games. He also helped Minn reach the SB his final, meaningful year in 1973.

He averaged nearly 20 yards per catch throughout his career and was clutch in the postseason, scoring TDs in the 1965 and 1966 NFL Championship games. He also scored on 60 plus yard TD in SB I but it was called back due to an offensive penalty. Despite playing on a running first team, still had over 8,000 yards receiving for his career.

Someone mentioned Homer Jones being elected but despite his athletic ability, mostly played sandlot-style football, hoping to catch passes from a scrambling Fran Tarkenton, then fizzled with a chance to replace the great Paul Warfield in Cleveland. Dale, along with Burford in the AFL, were more critical for their winning teams.
Zero26
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Re: Worst player in HOVG? Best player not in?

Post by Zero26 »

Best player not in HOVG IMO is Alex Webster who I believe should be in the HOF. He had more rushing yards than his HOF teammate Frank Gifford and averaged more yards from scrimmage as well(77.2). He also averaged more rushing yards than McElhenny averaged more of everything than Ollie Matson. While Gifford, Matson and McElhenny had more touchdowns than Webster only Gifford scored at a faster clip.

The biggest obstacle for him is his lack of accolades as he was only elected to 2 pro bowls which seems to be a deal breaker for any player whose career started after the pro bowl started. Because Alan Amache and John David Crow and Alan Ameche beat him out for all decade honors they are seen as the best RB/FB's outside of the hall of fame in this era.

Most underwhelming would be Goldberg and Presnell. IMO they are the sixth and seventh best non hall of famers on their respective championship teams and whose stats and accolades for their era don't stand out. Of said 11 Pat Harder and Ox Emerson are the only players who are in the HOVG.
Brian wolf
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Re: Worst player in HOVG? Best player not in?

Post by Brian wolf »

Though I would prefer Eddie Price slightly over Webster, its interesting that Webster had more productivity with Tittle at QB over Conerly. A valuable member of division winning teams, he definitely is an underrated back with a HOVG case. Didnt do much in the postseason after his two TDs in the 56 championship however ...
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Bryan
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Re: Worst player in HOVG? Best player not in?

Post by Bryan »

Brian wolf wrote: Didnt do much in the postseason after his two TDs in the 56 championship however ...
He was robbed of a fumble return TD in the 58 Championship game, though.
Zero26
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Re: Worst player in HOVG? Best player not in?

Post by Zero26 »

Brian wolf wrote:Though I would prefer Eddie Price slightly over Webster, its interesting that Webster had more productivity with Tittle at QB over Conerly. A valuable member of division winning teams, he definitely is an underrated back with a HOVG case. Didnt do much in the postseason after his two TDs in the 56 championship however ...
Statswise Price is certainly deserving of the HOVG though I still think Websters better given he had higher averages while splitting touches with Gifford. Price is more of a longevity issue though his career was just a little too short. Dick Hoerner for the Rams also comes to mind who has the same amount of games as Price. Price has better yardage stats, Hoerner has better TD stats. IMO though Towler is the second best RB of this era outside of the HOF and one of the very best players in the whole HOVG. Price is certainly close to that level though.

65 games seems to be a really important milestone for both the HOF and HOVG if you look at what seperates Doak Walker, Gale Sayers, Dan Towler, Alan Ameche etc from other great players of the era who are in neither hall. Cliff Battles is the only player in Canton who has less than 65 games(60) and who didn't play in the 1920s. Battles also got to the top of the major statistical cateogory's despite playing less games so you can see why that exception was made. I don't know how many the HOVG has but by looking at the list I see only 3 Isbell, Feathers and Spec Sanders. Like with Sims the HOVG doesn't seem to have very many candidates whose careers would be brief enough to bar them from the HOF. I do think this is slightly too restrictive and I'd push it down to 60 and 55 for the 14 and 10-12 game eras which is over 4 full seasons of play in all those eras. The area between 55-65 holds a lot of the games truly great players in those eras.

I don't really hold lack of postseason success against players especially in an era where it was more common to never even make the playoffs. Price's Giants only got to a tiebreak game once. Websters Giant teams might not have won more titles but they were consistantly getting to the championship game in Buffalo Billesque fashion. But that's something besides accolades that seperates Gifford from not just Webster but all the other offensive HOF candidates on those teams. But Webster has gotten less consideration than Shofner and Conerly both whom are in the HOVG(I feel Webster is the second most deserving of the 3 behind Shofner) and have gotten very close to HOF induction.
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Bryan
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Re: Worst player in HOVG? Best player not in?

Post by Bryan »

Zero26 wrote:Best player not in HOVG IMO is Alex Webster who I believe should be in the HOF. He had more rushing yards than his HOF teammate Frank Gifford and averaged more yards from scrimmage as well(77.2). He also averaged more rushing yards than McElhenny averaged more of everything than Ollie Matson. While Gifford, Matson and McElhenny had more touchdowns than Webster only Gifford scored at a faster clip.

The biggest obstacle for him is his lack of accolades as he was only elected to 2 pro bowls which seems to be a deal breaker for any player whose career started after the pro bowl started. Because Alan Amache and John David Crow and Alan Ameche beat him out for all decade honors they are seen as the best RB/FB's outside of the hall of fame in this era.
If you are comparing Webster to Gifford, then the average yards from scrimmage number is bogus because Gifford wasn't installed at HB until Vince Lombardi arrived in 1954. He was mainly a DB in 1952 and 1953, and a good one at that. He also spent his last 3 seasons as a flanker. From 1954 - 1960 when Gifford was a HB, he had 3 seasons where he compiled 1000+ yards from scrimmage in a 12 game schedule; Webster had 2 1000+ yard seasons in a 14 game schedule. Gifford also threw for a significant amount of yardage and TDs (for a HB). That said, I did not realize how much a part of the Giants passing game Webster was, perhaps due to an overall lack of WRs/TEs on those Giants teams. He was also a very consistent runner, and had two of his best years after turning 30. An interesting case; and I never knew that Webster was originally drafted by the woeful Redskins, and was immediately cut because the coaching staff thought Webster was "too slow".

I think what hurts Webster is all purpose yards. Guys like Matson and McElhenny were great return men. A guy like Jon Arnett might not have Webster's average yards from scrimmage, but Arnett was an esteemed player (5 pro bowls and 1 all pro in first 5 seasons) who was a gamebreaker. In the same number of seasons (10), Arnett has about 3000 more all-purpose yards than Webster. Matson and McEllhenny have 12000+ and 11000+ all purpose yards compared to Webster's 7300.
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Bryan
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Re: Worst player in HOVG? Best player not in?

Post by Bryan »

This is from an old post...I added Alex Webster at the end...

Out of boredom of every sporting event being cancelled, I crunched numbers of some 1950’s RBs to come up with a ‘usage percentage’, which is simply taking their career all-purpose yardage totals and figuring out what percentage of that total is comprised of rushing, receiving, punt return and kick return yards. The selection of RBs was somewhat random. Here are the results:

Joe Perry, Niners main team (Rushing% = 78, Receiving% = 16, Kick Return% = 6, Punt Return% = 0)
Perry was the starting point, because his workload was like that of a modern day ‘bell cow’…mostly rushing attempts, some receptions from just being on the field, and very little ST usage.

John Henry Johnson, Niners/Steelers (81/18/0/1)
JH had the highest rushing percentage of the RBs I looked at. I was surprised that he was never used as a kick returner…his size/speed would have served him well in that role.

Hugh McEllhenny, Niners (46/29/8/17)
Was never ‘fed’ the ball, but was always a punt return threat and often times would line up as a flanker. His PR yardage total more than doubled the next highest RB I looked at.

Frank Gifford, Giants (37/55/6/2)
Had the strangest usage, as his receiving was significantly higher than his rushing. Not counted in this was Gifford’s 823 passing yards, which was much greater than the next highest RB in this list (Hornung 383). It was strange that seemingly every RB had some type of passing yardage…I guess the HB option was a regular occurrence in that era…but Gifford’s total was impressive. Gifford also had 112 INT return yards, which was 2nd highest on this list.

Paul Hornung, Packers (68/27/5/0)
Had low overall yardage totals and his percentages featured a relatively high rushing rate, which may be do to the Packers offense being so ground-oriented. Hornung’s versatility isn’t measured well here…he was a good passer, great blocker, and scored points as a kicker.

Lenny Moore, Colts (42/49/9/0)
I wasn’t surprised to see Moore have a higher receiving percentage, but I was very surprised that he wasn’t more of a threat as a returner. The Colts never used him on returns at all until Moore was at the end of his career. Not sure why that was.

Ollie Matson, Cards (40/25/29/5)
He was the reason why I looked into this, because he would be dominant in one game and then the next game he would carry the ball only 5 times. Has the most impressive all-around totals...5000 rushing yards, 3000+ receiving, 4000+ returns. He even had 51 INT return yards and 119 passing yards. He was a premier KR guy. I think if you look at Matson’s season-by-season rushing totals, you don’t get the full picture of his talents.

Glenn Davis, Rams (35/39/20/6)
VT Smith, Rams (17/26/37/21)
Tommy Kalminar, Rams (21/11/48/11)
Dick Hoerner, Rams (63/34/1/0)
I wanted to see how the Rams deployed their ‘scatbacks’ and compare it to regular RB Dick Hoerner. I was surprised that even on a team with Fears and Hirsch, guys like Davis and Smith had such a high receiving percentage. Davis and Smith’s role in the 3 WR offense is pretty revolutionary. Vitamin T had the lowest run percentage of anyone on this list, as he was an excellent punt and kick returner. Tommy Kalminar didn’t touch the ball as much, but he was also a good return man.

Buddy Young, Yanks (28/28/36/7)
I was hoping to find someone with an exactly equal distribution, and Buddy Young was the closest to it. Had a very productive career with nearly 10,000 APY while nearly every team he played for would fold. A very good kick returner and an excellent receiver.

Dickie James, Redskins (21/18/50/10)
Similar to Young in that he had nearly 10,000 APY on dreadful teams. Had the highest KR% on the list, as the majority of his yards came on returns. His 142 INT return yards was the highest on the list as well.

Dub Jones, Browns (39/50/8/3)
A weird player who may have been the first guy with a relative 50/50 split of his rushing and receiving yards. Part of his high receiving% was due to the Browns offense, but he also was pretty special in his athleticism.

Bobby Mitchell, Browns/Skins (19/56/19/6)
I threw him in at the end after seeing a spectacular highlight film of Mitchell. I thought he had spent the majority of his career strictly as a flanker, but that was not the case. He was incredibly effective as a RB and also was a great return man. Impressive.

Alex Webster, Giants (63/37/0/0)
Late addition.
Sonny9
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Re: Worst player in HOVG? Best player not in?

Post by Sonny9 »

As far as value to a team, the player who returns kicks is nice to have. Shouldn't it be more about how much a player excelled at their position?
Zero26
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Re: Worst player in HOVG? Best player not in?

Post by Zero26 »

Bryan wrote:This is from an old post...I added Alex Webster at the end...

Out of boredom of every sporting event being cancelled, I crunched numbers of some 1950’s RBs to come up with a ‘usage percentage’, which is simply taking their career all-purpose yardage totals and figuring out what percentage of that total is comprised of rushing, receiving, punt return and kick return yards. The selection of RBs was somewhat random. Here are the results:

Joe Perry, Niners main team (Rushing% = 78, Receiving% = 16, Kick Return% = 6, Punt Return% = 0)
Perry was the starting point, because his workload was like that of a modern day ‘bell cow’…mostly rushing attempts, some receptions from just being on the field, and very little ST usage.

John Henry Johnson, Niners/Steelers (81/18/0/1)
JH had the highest rushing percentage of the RBs I looked at. I was surprised that he was never used as a kick returner…his size/speed would have served him well in that role.

Hugh McEllhenny, Niners (46/29/8/17)
Was never ‘fed’ the ball, but was always a punt return threat and often times would line up as a flanker. His PR yardage total more than doubled the next highest RB I looked at.

Frank Gifford, Giants (37/55/6/2)
Had the strangest usage, as his receiving was significantly higher than his rushing. Not counted in this was Gifford’s 823 passing yards, which was much greater than the next highest RB in this list (Hornung 383). It was strange that seemingly every RB had some type of passing yardage…I guess the HB option was a regular occurrence in that era…but Gifford’s total was impressive. Gifford also had 112 INT return yards, which was 2nd highest on this list.

Paul Hornung, Packers (68/27/5/0)
Had low overall yardage totals and his percentages featured a relatively high rushing rate, which may be do to the Packers offense being so ground-oriented. Hornung’s versatility isn’t measured well here…he was a good passer, great blocker, and scored points as a kicker.

Lenny Moore, Colts (42/49/9/0)
I wasn’t surprised to see Moore have a higher receiving percentage, but I was very surprised that he wasn’t more of a threat as a returner. The Colts never used him on returns at all until Moore was at the end of his career. Not sure why that was.

Ollie Matson, Cards (40/25/29/5)
He was the reason why I looked into this, because he would be dominant in one game and then the next game he would carry the ball only 5 times. Has the most impressive all-around totals...5000 rushing yards, 3000+ receiving, 4000+ returns. He even had 51 INT return yards and 119 passing yards. He was a premier KR guy. I think if you look at Matson’s season-by-season rushing totals, you don’t get the full picture of his talents.

Glenn Davis, Rams (35/39/20/6)
VT Smith, Rams (17/26/37/21)
Tommy Kalminar, Rams (21/11/48/11)
Dick Hoerner, Rams (63/34/1/0)
I wanted to see how the Rams deployed their ‘scatbacks’ and compare it to regular RB Dick Hoerner. I was surprised that even on a team with Fears and Hirsch, guys like Davis and Smith had such a high receiving percentage. Davis and Smith’s role in the 3 WR offense is pretty revolutionary. Vitamin T had the lowest run percentage of anyone on this list, as he was an excellent punt and kick returner. Tommy Kalminar didn’t touch the ball as much, but he was also a good return man.

Buddy Young, Yanks (28/28/36/7)
I was hoping to find someone with an exactly equal distribution, and Buddy Young was the closest to it. Had a very productive career with nearly 10,000 APY while nearly every team he played for would fold. A very good kick returner and an excellent receiver.

Dickie James, Redskins (21/18/50/10)
Similar to Young in that he had nearly 10,000 APY on dreadful teams. Had the highest KR% on the list, as the majority of his yards came on returns. His 142 INT return yards was the highest on the list as well.

Dub Jones, Browns (39/50/8/3)
A weird player who may have been the first guy with a relative 50/50 split of his rushing and receiving yards. Part of his high receiving% was due to the Browns offense, but he also was pretty special in his athleticism.

Bobby Mitchell, Browns/Skins (19/56/19/6)
I threw him in at the end after seeing a spectacular highlight film of Mitchell. I thought he had spent the majority of his career strictly as a flanker, but that was not the case. He was incredibly effective as a RB and also was a great return man. Impressive.

Alex Webster, Giants (63/37/0/0)
Late addition.
Without specialists that was an added duty someone would have to do, sometimes those players would be backs sometimes those players would be from other positions(on those Giants teams they tended to be defensive players). But unlike rushing and receiving yards it's not part of the running back position and not every back gets the chance to return.

Now in terms of the HOF caring about all purpose yards for backs besides Matson and McElhenny most of the backs with crazy return numbers are from an earlier era where everyone did something other than their position. But while they've bolstered the cases of several players there is no back who clearly wouldn't be in the HOF based on just their scrimmage stats. All the would be cases are high up there in various scrimmage category's whether those be long term totals(Canadeo, McElhenny,Matson) or short term averages(Gale Sayers Doak Walker, McAfee). McAfee I think has the weakest case of the ones I just named but he had the best case of a back from a Bears team that was 1 game away from winning 4 titles in a row and 4 in 6 years. Those Bears teams also had a bizzarely large collection of star fullbacks and running backs splitting touches and accolades(not 4 or 5 closer to 10). He was the only one of the group who I think missed 3 seasons due to WW2 and still has the best career stats.

Glenn Davis might be the greatest 1 year wonder in NFL history. In terms of how they made it work that year I think Towler was the one who sacrificed those touches(he scored 6 times on 54 touches and 193 yards, in 1951 he scored the same 6 times on 142 touches and 1111 yards). The start of his IMO HOF worthy career coincided with the end of Glenn Davis's. Vitamin Smith had 1 more touch in 1951. To put in perspective how great that 1950 team was Fears and Hirsch actually averaged less catches in 1951 where Glenn Davis only had 8 catches opposed to his 42 in 1950. They even had a third guy on those teams who'd have an all pro receiving season in Bob Boyd. The 1950 Rams are overshadowed by the 1951 Rams because they didn't win the championship but they were a more historic offense averaging more PPG than the 07 Patriots,13 Broncos etc. While the 50 Rams defense allowed more points than the 51 Rams the 49 and 50 Rams forced far many more turnovers 59 to 36(Interceptions and forced fumbles). Going by average that's more than the 00 Ravens(4.9 to 4.1). Of course that wasn't more than either the 49 Eagles or the 50 Browns(who forced 69 turnovers of 5.75pg) and those are the team comparisons that are remembered.
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Bryan
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Re: Worst player in HOVG? Best player not in?

Post by Bryan »

Zero26 wrote:Without specialists that was an added duty someone would have to do, sometimes those players would be backs sometimes those players would be from other positions(on those Giants teams they tended to be defensive players). But unlike rushing and receiving yards it's not part of the running back position and not every back gets the chance to return.
You make it sound like head coaches in the 1950's stood in front of their teams and ask "Hey, does anyone want to return punts?" I think that undersells the impact of the return game in that decade. Before you had punters going for hang time, special teams coaches, and kicking specialists, a team could get several big return plays over the course of a season. I don't think the Cardinals had Ollie Matson returning kicks because someone had to do it, I think they had Matson returning kicks because he was great at it and it really helped a feeble offense put points on the board. I guess technically kick/punt returns aren't part of anyone's position, not just RBs. Not every RB gets the same opportunities to rush and receive, either.
Zero26 wrote:Now in terms of the HOF caring about all purpose yards for backs besides Matson and McElhenny most of the backs with crazy return numbers are from an earlier era where everyone did something other than their position.
I don't think it even has to be in terms of the HOF; it's how the players were viewed in their own era. Was Webster ever considered an elite RB? Jon Arnett's accolades dwarf Webster's. I think that is due in part to Arnett's return ability.
Zero26 wrote:But while they've bolstered the cases of several players there is no back who clearly wouldn't be in the HOF based on just their scrimmage stats.
I guess this could be it's own thread. George McAfee is one. Paul Hornung wouldn't be in if he wasn't also a kicker and didn't play in the postseason. Doak Walker probably wouldn't be in without his kicking/returning/postseason resume. Frank Gifford might not be in without his passing and his defense. I would guess that there are several borderline HOF RBs who had the scale tipped in their favor due to something other than scrimmage stats.
Zero26 wrote:Glenn Davis might be the greatest 1 year wonder in NFL history. In terms of how they made it work that year I think Towler was the one who sacrificed those touches(he scored 6 times on 54 touches and 193 yards, in 1951 he scored the same 6 times on 142 touches and 1111 yards).
Towler was a rookie in 1950; I guess he could have touched the ball more, but Davis averaged nearly two more yards per carry and was a much better receiver. Davis spent a lot of time as a slot WR in 1950, so I'm not sure how Towler would factor in to that. If anything, what probably allowed Davis to take on a rather large rushing workload was the Rams using Tank Younger almost exclusively as an OLB in 1950. He went from 53 carries and 7 receptions in 1949 to 8 carries and 0 receptions in 1950 (but Younger was a great OLB).
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