ClutchPoints
Back in November when the NFL announced the 25 modern-era semifinalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, here’s what I wrote about legendary New England Patriots/Indianapolis Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri, who I picked as one of my six selections for the Hall of Fame Class of 2025:
Sure, only two players who have played placekicker exclusively have made the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but that number is about to grow by one. Nobody has played in more combined regular season and postseason games than Adam Vinatieri. Nobody has scored more points. Unofficially, nobody has made more clutch kicks, and no kicker is more worthy of being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Along with Hall of Famer Jan Stenerud, Vinatieri was named to the NFL’s 100th Anniversary Team, so there shouldn’t be much debate as to whether Vinatieri is going to be heading to Canton this summer.
Well, imagine my embarrassment when earlier this week Adam Vinatieri — and four of my other six selections as well — missed out on the Hall of Fame. Vinatieri’s snub was met not only with near universal disapproval but also confusion, considering how as I pointed out a little over two and a half months ago, he was named one of the NFL’s 100 greatest players less than five years ago. Shoot, he was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s All-Decade Team in the 2000’s, so it’s not as if this voting bloc doesn’t understand his contributions.
Now I could sit here and say that I don’t understand why Vinatieri’s snub happened, but the fact of the matter is, I do know why it happened. It happened because for whatever reason, the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee has woefully underappreciated the contributions and Hall of Fame credentials of special teams players. And prior to Vinatieri’s snub during this recent voting cycle, it was already perfectly clear that this was the case when it took Devin Hester until his 3rd year on the ballot to make the cut.
Over the summer, when I ranked the ten greatest Chicago Bears players ever, in my section on Hester, I wrote the following:
There should be a general rule of them that comes with Hall of Fame qualification that states, ‘If you’re the best player in the history of the NFL at the position you played, you’re in,’ and that means Hester should’ve been in on his first attempt, because there is no better, more dynamic, or more feared return man in the history of pro football than Devin Hester.
Unfortunately, the Pro Football Hall of Fame didn’t take my suggestion into account over the last seven months, because if they had, we wouldn’t be in this mess where the defining kicker of the last quarter-century of professional football missed out on making the Hall of Fame.
Now if I wanted to play devil’s advocate here and argue against Adam Vinatieri’s Hall of Fame case, I would point to...
