The 2021 NFL Hall of Fame Class: Who’s In & Who’s Not
Scott Morris | May 20, 2021
The 2021 NFL Hall of Fame class will be inducted on Sunday, August 8, 2021, at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio. This year’s class includes some of the greatest players at their positions to ever play the game. QB Peyton Manning, WR Calvin Johnson, and DB Charles Woodson head up this year’s honorees.
Those three join guard Alan Faneca, DB John Lynch, WR Drew Pearson, former NFL scout Bill Nunn, and former head coach Tom Flores. While there weren’t any real surprises in the Class of 2021 inductees, the real shock with the announcement of this year’s class is who isn’t in it.
Not in the Hall of Fame
It’s hard to believe, but there are a number of outstanding players (and coaches) with lists of accolades a mile long, Super Bowl rings, and much more that do not have their bust commemorated in Canton.
Sure, Don Coryell never won a Super Bowl as a head coach, but his Chargers offenses of the 1970s and ‘80s were spectacular. The Chargers went to the playoffs six times under Coryell and he won 111 games. Still, no Hall.
Super Bowl Winning Coach George Seifert
The 49ers George Seifert does have Super Bowl wins, two of them in fact. He had 114 career wins and a higher winner percentage than Hall of Famer Bill Parcells. Plus, Seifert went 10-5 in playoff games for a .667 winning percentage. Guess who also had a playoff winning percentage that high? George Halas and Chuck Noll, both Hall of Famers.
Lee Roy Jordan was the key to the Dallas Cowboys’ old “Doomsday” defenses back in the 1960s and ‘70s. Roger Craig is one of only three NFL players to rush for and catch passes for over 1,000 yards in the same season. Steve McNair had over 31,000 passing yards and 3,500 rushing yards, a league MVP, and three Pro Bowls. None are in the Hall.
Then, there is the curious case of former Miami Dolphins LB Zach Thomas.
Not Big Enough
Zach Thomas at Texas Tech
Thomas heard it all from the time he started playing high school football until he reached the NFL. He wasn’t big enough in high school, but his team won a state championship when he was just a freshman. Thomas wasn’t big enough or fast enough to play at Texas Tech, but he became a starter as a sophomore. He would go on to earn first-team All-American honors as a junior and a senior.
When it came time for the 1996 NFL draft, Thomas was still too small and not athletic enough. He reportedly had a 28.5-inch vertical jump and a 4.85 40-yard dash. Those numbers are extremely pedestrian, but the Miami Dolphins and head coach Jimmy Johnson took a shot on Thomas in the fifth round. It was one of Johnson’s most successful draft picks ever.
Hall of Fame Numbers
There are three players in the history of the NFL that recorded 100 or more tackles in each of their first ten seasons. Thomas is one of them. He would play 13 seasons in the league, 12 with Miami and the last one with Dallas. Injuries limited him in his final season in Miami (2007) and he fell just six tackles short of 100 in his final season with the Cowboys.
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No player in the Pro Football Hall of Fame had more tackles than Thomas until Junior Seau was inducted in 2015 and Ray Lewis in 2018. For comparison’s sake, take Chicago Bears great Brian Urlacher, who wears the gold jacket. Urlacher does have more sacks and interceptions than Thomas; however, Thomas had more tackles, had more forced fumbles and was an All-Pro five times compared to just four for Urlacher. Yes, Urlacher did play in a Super Bowl and had the luxury of a bigger media market in Chicago, but Thomas’s numbers are just as strong.
Thomas’s numbers do speak for themselves: 1,727 tackles, 20.5 sacks, 16 forced fumbles, 8 fumble recoveries, 17 interceptions (four returned for touchdowns) in 184 career games. Thomas was a seven-time Pro Bowl selection, five-time first-team All-Pro, two-time second-team All-Pro, two-time Linebacker of the Year, and the AFC Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1996.
This was the second year Thomas was nominated for the Hall of Fame and the second year he was snubbed. Too many more snubs and he could end up like Jordan, who had 1,236 tackles and 32 interceptions in 14 seasons in Dallas. That would be a shame.
