- Predicting the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2025.
- Five modern-era finalists to come from a group of 15 on Thursday.
- Antonio Gates, Eli Manning among names to watch.
Who will pop up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025 when it is announced Thursday?
Who would be on my ballot if I had one?
Let’s start with the second question.
I grew up on the Browns in their often glorious 1960s, covered the team on a beat basis for 20-plus inglorious years, spent a week at 19 Super Bowls, and, partly because working in the town where the Hall of Fame is opens doors, am armed with a gazillion conversations with people who know more about football than me.
For the two cents my opinion is worth, Antonio Gates is an easy yes. He was better than Ozzie Newsome, a Browns icon who was a similar style of tight end. In regular seasons, Gates caught 116 touchdown passes. Newsome caught 47. Travis Kelce has 77.
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Forgetting the numbers, Gates passed the athletic-force eyeball test from the time I watched him scare the tar out of people trying for rebounds when he hooped at Kent State.
I’m a “no” on Eli Manning.
His regular-season record was 117-117. His two Super Bowl wins were offset by four other postseasons of one-and-done. Give me Bernie Kosar in his prime over Eli, all day.
The maximum number of the 15 modern-era finalists who can get in is five. My other four?
They’d throw me off the committee but I’m voting to end the “glut of wide receivers.”
Torry Holt and Steve Smith looked like Hall of Fame wideouts to me, and Reggie Wayne produced like one. I hesitate slightly on Wayne because Eli’s brother was his quarterback — Chansi Stuckey might have looked like a Pro Bowler with Peyton.
Stats-wise (career yards, yards per catch, TDs), they’re clone guys: Smith (14,731, 14.3, 81); Holt (13,382, 14.5, 74); Wayne (14,345, 13.4, 82).
I’m tired of looking at their names every election cycle. Triple congrats.
That leaves room for one more, and it’s between two pass rushers, Jared Allen and Terrell Suggs.
Allen had 126 sacks in his first 10 seasons with the Chiefs and Vikings. That’s about where Myles Garrett figures to be at his 10-year mark, wherever he might be. Garrett has 102.5 sacks in his eight years with the Browns.
As for Suggs, it took 17 seasons to get to 139 sacks. Joe Thomas always thought he was legit. Good enough for me, but Allen gets my last vote.
I don’t know as many actual voters as I used to; the group is getting harder to read.
Predicting who voters select for Pro Football Hall of Fame’s 2025 class
If I had to bet on how the body of 49 goes with this year’s election …
Gates is in. So is one of the receivers, Smith, and one of the rush guys, Allen.
Guard Marshal Yanda and cornerback Eric Allen are my other guesses, for assorted, tedious reasons attendant to group mind-reading.
The finalists not mentioned above, in no particular order and with no particular confidence it won’t be one or two of them:
Tackle Willie Anderson, linebacker Luke Kuechly, guard Jahri Evans, running back Fred Taylor, kicker Adam Vinatieri and safety Darren Woodson.
Apologies to my son-in-law who was a classmate of Kuechly at Cincinnati St. Xavier High School. “First-ballot Hall of Famer,” he says, but we all have our opinions and reasons.
Reach Steve at [email protected]
