Former Saints Player Eric Allen named to the 2025 NFL Hall of Fame (1 Viewer)

[Saintman2884]

Sorry my bad. Dave Whitsell was before my time. I never seen him play. Good addition to the list.

I feel safe in making the argument that 60-70% of most Saints fans alive today along the central Gulf Coast, in city of New Orleans, as well as a majority of fans online here at SR.com probably weren't alive or were too young to truly be familiar or have cursory understanding of the Saints teams' first 5 years of existence, save for several well-known, local household names (Danny Abramowitz, Steve Stonebreaker, Doug Atkins, Dave Whitsell, "Flea" Roberts, Billy Kilmer and Tom Dempsey).

 

[gummbo70114]

I feel safe in making the argument that 60-70% of most Saints fans alive today along the central Gulf Coast, in city of New Orleans, as well as a majority of fans online here at SR.com probably weren't alive or were too young to truly be familiar or have cursory understanding of the Saints teams' first 5 years of existence, save for several well-known, local household names (Danny Abramowitz, Steve Stonebreaker, Doug Atkins, Dave Whitsell, "Flea" Roberts, Billy Kilmer and Tom Dempsey).

These are the names I grew up, listening to on the radio every Sunday.

 

[Saintman2884]

Brees
Evans

This is when rings matter

Former greats like Witten, Frank Gore and perhaps though it's not a 100% slam dunk he or they'll get in first-ballot guys like Philip Rivers, Lesean McCoy might get in although I think Thomas Davis has a better overall chance next year then he does.

Philip Rivers has the HOF-CALIBER stats, that's not in doubt, but other intangibles (post-season W-L record, overall winning seasons, no SB appearances and/or wins (he only made one AFCCG in 2007 @ Pats which LT conveniently decided to sit out on the sidelines while Rivers played with a severely-sprained ACL the entire game) opposed to contemporaries with similar career arcs like Stafford and Ryan who at least made SB appearance or in Stafford's case, won it 3 years ago. There's going to be some HOF pollsters and writers asking some tough "why" and "what about this" sort of questions and if they don't get enough of a satisfactory answer to these questions, they may say, "Not now" or "Let's wait it out and think about it a little further".

Is it being fair or honest to Rivers to kind-of lowball his many, long and winding career achievements? Probably not, but that's how power politics and how cutthroat and meticulous the HOF selection process really is. Look at how long it took Paul Krause, Art Monk, or even our own Rickey Jackson (City Champ) to be inducted into Canton. sheet, Jared Allen finished his career with 136 career sacks.and retired nearly a DECADE AGO and only now is he getting inducted. Meanwhile, borderline HOF-caliber players like Heinz Ward, legendary 60's-early 80's WR Harold Jackson and arguably, former Cowboys S Charlie Waters are still waiting. Then there's absolute criminal travesties like legendary former Bengals safety Lamar Parrish and also Ken Anderson.

 

[Bayou_City]

Former greats like Witten, Frank Gore and perhaps though it's not a 100% slam dunk he or they'll get in first-ballot guys like Philip Rivers, Lesean McCoy might get in although I think Thomas Davis has a better overall chance next year then he does.

Philip Rivers has the HOF-CALIBER stats, that's not in doubt, but other intangibles (post-season W-L record, overall winning seasons, no SB appearances and/or wins (he only made one AFCCG in 2007 @ Pats which LT conveniently decided to sit out on the sidelines while Rivers played with a severely-sprained ACL the entire game) opposed to contemporaries with similar career arcs like Stafford and Ryan who at least made SB appearance or in Stafford's case, won it 3 years ago. There's going to be some HOF pollsters and writers asking some tough "why" and "what about this" sort of questions and if they don't get enough of a satisfactory answer to these questions, they may say, "Not now" or "Let's wait it out and think about it a little further".

Is it being fair or honest to Rivers to kind-of lowball his many, long and winding career achievements? Probably not, but that's how power politics and how cutthroat and meticulous the HOF selection process really is. Look at how long it took Paul Krause, Art Monk, or even our own Rickey Jackson (City Champ) to be inducted into Canton. sheet, Jared Allen finished his career with 136 career sacks.and retired nearly a DECADE AGO and only now is he getting inducted. Meanwhile, borderline HOF-caliber players like Heinz Ward, legendary 60's-early 80's WR Harold Jackson and arguably, former Cowboys S Charlie Waters are still waiting. Then there's absolute criminal travesties like legendary former Bengals safety Lamar Parrish and also Ken Anderson.

Rivers deserves to get in..but they have a limited amount that get inducted. If it came down to Rivers or Flacco....Flacco gets in cause of rings and post season. But we shall see and wait.

 

[Scorpius the Allfather]

Jabari Greer, We don't win the SB without him

2nd best passer rating behind only Revis that year. It was under 50 I believe.

 

[St.Dan]

Former greats like Witten, Frank Gore and perhaps though it's not a 100% slam dunk he or they'll get in first-ballot guys like Philip Rivers, Lesean McCoy might get in although I think Thomas Davis has a better overall chance next year then he does.

Philip Rivers has the HOF-CALIBER stats, that's not in doubt, but other intangibles (post-season W-L record, overall winning seasons, no SB appearances and/or wins (he only made one AFCCG in 2007 @ Pats which LT conveniently decided to sit out on the sidelines while Rivers played with a severely-sprained ACL the entire game) opposed to contemporaries with similar career arcs like Stafford and Ryan who at least made SB appearance or in Stafford's case, won it 3 years ago. There's going to be some HOF pollsters and writers asking some tough "why" and "what about this" sort of questions and if they don't get enough of a satisfactory answer to these questions, they may say, "Not now" or "Let's wait it out and think about it a little further".

Is it being fair or honest to Rivers to kind-of lowball his many, long and winding career achievements? Probably not, but that's how power politics and how cutthroat and meticulous the HOF selection process really is. Look at how long it took Paul Krause, Art Monk, or even our own Rickey Jackson (City Champ) to be inducted into Canton. sheet, Jared Allen finished his career with 136 career sacks.and retired nearly a DECADE AGO and only now is he getting inducted. Meanwhile, borderline HOF-caliber players like Heinz Ward, legendary 60's-early 80's WR Harold Jackson and arguably, former Cowboys S Charlie Waters are still waiting. Then there's absolute criminal travesties like legendary former Bengals safety Lamar Parrish and also Ken Anderson.

Biggest travesty of all those names is Anderson. He was super-accurate at a time when not many QBs completed even 50 percent of their passes annually, not even the greats who had rings.

 

[faceman]

Biggest travesty of all those names is Anderson. He was super-accurate at a time when not many QBs completed even 50 percent of their passes annually, not even the greats who had rings.

Agreed and if Charles Alexander had run the correct route in SB 16 he probably has a SB ring

 

[SpeckKillerII]

Congratulations Eric Allen!

Former New Orleans Saints defensive back Eric Allen named to Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2025

He certainly did not play like a Hall of Famer when he was here.

 

[Saintman2884]

Rivers deserves to get in..but they have a limited amount that get inducted. If it came down to Rivers or Flacco....Flacco gets in cause of rings and post season. But we shall see and wait.

Since Joe Flacco has quite successfully I might add come out of semi-retirement a few times and actually shown he can be a very good back-up, relief QB for Cleveland and this past season, Indianapolis if he does decide to finally retire once and for all, the earliest he would become available under this timeline would be before the 2030 season. My own personal opinion is that he'll likely play for some team next season that needs a good backup, if their starting QB begins struggling early or God forbid, gets injured like Anthony Richardson did for Colts midway through this past season. Strangely enough, at least in the context as a backup/starting QB, since he returned early in the 2022/23 seasons after being retired from the Jets, he's looked pretty damn good. Far better then he did those few seasons after Baltimore released him and he came across as old, feeble and disinterested in stints with Denver and New York Jets.

If anything, these past two seasons have only reinvigorated his career and prompted a bit of a reevaluation and extra focus towards his career and what he's achieved. I don't see Flacco retiring this offseason and by the time he finally does, his HOF candidacy won't be adequately reviewed and analyzed until the early 2030's. By then, I feel reasonably sure in stating Philip Rivers will have been inducted by that point. Rivers is a future HOFer, but not a sure-fire, first ballot HOF like Brees, Fitzgerald, or even Jason Witten and Frank Gore are.

 

[St. Geezy]

Seemed like more of a “Hall of Very Good” guy, but I don’t want to sound like a hater.

Certainly a really good career, but this one surprises me, I must say.

 

[RebSaint]

Have we ever picked up someone in the secondary that was not overrated? Besides Tracy Porter.

Honey Badger has worked out despite losing some steps.

 

[Saintman2884]

Seemed like more of a “Hall of Very Good” guy, but I don’t want to sound like a hater.

Certainly a really good career, but this one surprises me, I must say.

That can be a very murky, difficult line to accurately interpret sometimes when it comes to defining certain potential, possible HOF players eligibility. It might be easier to define with guys like Joe Flacco, or other borderline HOFers like Stephen Gostkowski, but their are players who both won and didn't win Super Bowls that are in this "Hall of Very Good" whose careers had far greater merit, achievement and deserve further acknowledgment. These include Hines Ward, arguably Rodney Harrison, and former Cowboys safety Charlie Waters and even former NFL HC's like Marty Schottenheimer, Dan Reeves and Mike Shanahan. Sure, Reeves lost 4 SB's as a HC with Denver and Atlanta but he was a consummate, successful HC who won with all the teams he was with. He was also a pretty damn good FB and WR as a Cowboy in the 1960's, even winning a Super Bowl as a player/coach on that 1971 Dallas team. He was a top-notch, innovative OC for the Cowboys throughout the 1970's as they made three more SB appearances in the decade after his retirement, winning another one, in Super Bowl XII against Denver, 27-10. Former legendary Vikings HC Bud Grant also lost four SB's from 1969-76 but it didnt stop or prevent his HOF induction in the early 90's. Same applies to Marv Levy and the 1990's Buffalo Bills.

Is Russell Wilson also in this same "Hall of Very Good" category as Flacco or Mark Brunell? Given Wilson's achievements, I don't think its fair or accurate to lump his career in the same sub-group.

FWIW, I think Cam Jordan is maybe one halfway decent season away from warranting major HOF consideration and going from an interesting "borderline candidate" to a serious contender. If he can somehow end his career with amassing 10-11 more sacks, I think he has a decent chance. Then again, Leslie O'Neal had 4 less career sacks than Jared Allen in his career IIRC, and has been largely forgotten by NFL fans and commentators over the past 20+ years since he retired. Same logic applies to Raiders All-Pro DE (and all-time franchise sack leader) Greg Townsend who has 109.5 career sacks while fellow former Raiders D-linemen Howie Long ended his career with nearly twenty less sacks and was inducted into Canton. Townsend had 10 seasons in his career where he had 10x more sacks and he only got voted to two (2) Pro Bowls in that entire time. That's bullshirt, frankly and I felt similarly with towards Jared Allen having to wait an entire decade after retiring just to be formally inducted a few days ago.

 

[IceHot]

He was a Saint for like 2 minutes and stunk for the money he got... and over Jahri Evans? Blah!

He didnt get in over Jahri as they could have easily taken 8 (5+3) total by their own rules. I am disappointed actually that they didnt...this is just going to create more backlog in my opinion.

 

[IceHot]

An interesting selection indeed. Folk need to remember this whenever the conversation is about the number of rings relative to other accolades when being considered for Canton. I'd have thought Allen's place in NFL history would be described with words like "solid" or "steady." I'm a bit surprised he made it all the way through the process, but remember, we've seen the bar get a little lower in recent years compared to what it was.

How can you say the bar is lowered when they only take 4 (3+1*) instead of the allowed 8?

The final steps of balloting reduces the list from 10 to 5 modern era candidates. So there were 2 more that made it to this step. They then vote individually. So 2 of the finalists did not meet the individual 80% voting threshold in the very last step as they could have taken all 5.

It might also be interesting to note that of the 41* previously inducted DBs only 26 of them have won NFL championships, so that is not really a requirement. Remember Ken Riley was also just recently inducted.

That being said Eric Allen was not on my radar as one of my 5 (+ 3). I actually did not think he would be a finalist.

*not including all the two-way players of the super early days of football.

*Sterling Sharpe was a senior candidate not a modern era candidate

 

[IceHot]

That can be a very murky, difficult line to accurately interpret sometimes when it comes to defining certain potential, possible HOF players eligibility. It might be easier to define with guys like Joe Flacco, or other borderline HOFers like Stephen Gostkowski, but their are players who both won and didn't win Super Bowls that are in this "Hall of Very Good" whose careers had far greater merit, achievement and deserve further acknowledgment...

A lot of good stuff in this post.

Not disagreeing with Townsend, but to note with Howie he played a little more versatile of a role than Greg. My understanding is that Howie played more of a 3-tech role in most sets and sometimes played the nose when they used a formation similar to the Bears 46.

Also when Greg and Howie were on the field and they pulled Lyle Alzado off the field they would kick Long out to the edge but when that occurred Greg played on the left and Howie on the right.