FanNation - The Republic of Sport

enderandrew said 11/15, 09:48 PM
The Hall of Fame sometimes is more than individual stats. Sometimes the HOF represents innovation, or relevance to his time, and his place in history.

Jackie Robinson would be in the HOF for baseball regardless of stats, because of his impact on American culture.

Ken Anderson worked with Bill Walsh, and ushered in an era of the West Coast Offense, and aspects of that offense are used at every level of football decades later. The innovations can not be ignored.

Previous era of QBs also did not throw the ball nearly as much, and the game was so vastly different, that it is hard to compare.

When you look stat-wise at QBs, all the "greats" played from the mid 80's on it seems. How is it possible that the greatest QBs only played in the past two decades? Because the eras were so different, that stats are very slanted towards modern offenses.

For his time, Ken Anderson was extremely relevant and important, and his place in history should not be forgotten.

He deserves at the very least to be considered.

enderandrew said 11/16, 01:19 PM
Are you suggesting that Joe Montana shouldn't be in the HOF because he had guys like Craig, Rathman, Rice, Clark, Lott, Young, etc? Some say Montana's 49ers are one of the 3 best teams of all time. Joe Montana was surrounded by more talent than Anderson, and your argument is we should discount a candidate because of talent around them.

I say good players get in, regardless of talent around them,

enderandrew said 11/17, 02:43 PM
Fair enough.

All I'm really saying is that even though his numbers don't stand out as being amazing compared to a Marino today, when he retired, his numbers were still pretty damned good for his time.

The game has changed so much, and passive offenses are all much better today than they used to be, and that is in no small part to the advent of the WCO. Anderson didn't invent it, but if early pioneers like Anderson didn't have success with it, then maybe it doesn't catch on in other places. If Walsh flopped developing Anderson, would he get to develop Montana later on?

Anderson's play, and the early development of the WCO had a HUGE impact on football on all levels from high school to the pros. That kind of impact needs to be noted in the hall.