I grew up in DC metro area. I started watching football shortly after Brian Mitchell started playing. This article is this first time I’ve ever heard him and hall of fame mentioned
I’ll admit when I think of him the first thing I think of is the time he took a kickoff and kneeled down. Only he wasn’t in the end zone, he was like on the half yard line and he got absolutely demolished
If Art Monk, who held every major receiving record when he retired, and should have been in the hall right away had to wait so long (still a sore spot in DC), the career leader in return yards may not get in ever
If Devin Hester gets in one day, maybe Mitchell does one day too
I also forgot he played for anyone other than Washington
=======================
On the Saturday night before the Super Bowl, the Pro Football Hall of Fame will announce its 2023 class. Brian Mitchell won’t be in it. Again. That’s ridiculous. Let’s change it.
“I just have a lot of respect for him, and I think our teams did,” Joe Gibbs said. “Certainly, if there’s a way to get him in the Hall of Fame, we need to do it.”
“If you’re evaluating for great players that love the game and understand the game,” Andy Reid said, “he would have to be one of them.”
Here is a list of players who gained more all-purpose yards than Brian Mitchell: Jerry Rice.
Jerry Rice and … who? Jerry Rice and nobody.
That’s who.
The list of players who had more kick returns and kick return yards:
The list of players who had more punt returns and punt return yards:
But here’s the thing about Mitchell’s candidacy for the Hall of Fame: It’s not just about overlooking Brian Mitchell. It’s about overlooking what coaches constantly tell us is a third of the game: special teams.
“When I talk about our Super Bowl teams, I always say that we started with special teams,” Gibbs said by phone last month. “Our first meeting of each day was special teams. I always felt like special teams was the heart of your team because I think all the guys that played just offense or just defense, they had such tremendous respect for the guys that played special teams. There’s guys that appreciate the courage it takes to stand down there and field a punt when you got 11 guys coming down to try and kill you.”
That was Mitchell. He arrived in Washington as a fifth-round pick in 1990. He was a college quarterback at Louisiana, but Gibbs told him the best way to make the team was as a do-whatever-was-asked return man. In a preseason game that August, he received the first kickoff of his life. He returned it 92 yards for a touchdown.
In a 14-year career — 10 in Washington, three in Philadelphia and one with the New York Giants — he gained 19,013 yards on punt and kick returns.
Not only is that the most ever, no one else is within 4,000 yards of him. He returned 13 punts and kicks for touchdowns, behind only Devin Hester.
His style: You’re running at me? I’m going to run at you…….
Here's a name you may or may not have ever heard of in your lifetime since he died of AIDS in the mid/late 80's but during his long and winding career, he compiled IMHO, a HOF-worthy career as a TE, Jerry Smith. He played for the old Redskins for over a decade and was apart of their 1972 Super Bowl VII squad that lost, 14-7, to the unbeaten Miami Dolphins, and IIRC, was voted to 4-5 Pro Bowls over the course of his career. His overall career stats, as a TE, are compatible to former Raiders/Colts TE Raymond Chester (being a DC native, your parents or older Colts/Redskins fans on here will remember him) but like with Chester's career, Jerry Smith has sort of been forgotten and very much over-looked in terms of being one of the best at his position during the 1970's.
One of the reasons why, I suspect, might explain Smith's being over-looked and his career and legacy since his death could be long-stemming homophobia against gay players or sports stars in general. While mainstream public opinion or attitudes towards LGBT community had thankfully become more enlightened and improved over the past 2 decades, 45-50 years ago, they were still viewed as societal outcasts, the DSM-IV actually had homosexuality listed as a mental disorder as late as the mid-70's, in many states, if it was discovered one was gay/lesbian, one could lose their job, livelihood, profession, and while Jerry Smith never officially came as gay publicly (despite doing it privately in front of his family in early 1980's in Texas), most of his Redskins teammates, including former HC Vince Lombardi, knew he was and in fact one of his domestic partners was a former closeted gay player himself.