TheBigEasy99
ALL-MADDEN TEAM
Offline
Why not? When I look at the Hall of Fame, I look at it per position. Why try to compare Dan Marino to an offensive lineman? Why try to compare Johnny Unitas to a placekicker?
By your argument, no fullback or place kicker would ever get into the HOF. You can't do that. You have to look at it WITHIN the position. And WITHIN the fullback position, Alstott is one of the 5 or 6 best ever to play it.
Alstott was a fullback on the depth chart only. During his best years he was taking more snaps out of the tailback slot than he was from the fullback position. You can try and compare his stats to other fullbacks, but it doesn’t do any good when he wasn’t really playing fullback most of the time. Sorry, but people are going to take those sort of things into consideration when judging a player for the Hall of Fame. Alstott was a good (but not great) lead blocker, and he was a good (but not great) primary rusher, and he was a good (but not great) receiving threat out of the backfield. All of those things add up to being a good (but not great) player. And as someone else here pointed out, it’s the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Very Good (or even the Hall of Good in this case).
Alstott, no doubt, was a class act throughout his career, but unfortunately (in my opinion) he is not a HOFer. In all the years we played the Bucs I never woke up the morning of the game and said to myself “Holy crap, we have to deal with John Alstott today.”
You’ve mentioned how we don’t discredit Reggie or Westbrook’s receiving numbers when they line up in the slot, and you’re right; we don’t. But Westbrook probably won’t be getting into the Hall of Fame either (even though he is much more deserving than Alstott) for the same reason; although he was probably the best rushing/receiving threat in the league after Marshall Faulk, he wasn’t quite good enough in either of those categories to warrant being enshrined in Canton. The same standard will apply to Reggie Bush as his career progresses.
When it’s all said and done, Alstott will be remembered as a consummate pro, a Sunday warrior, and a great Buc. But he won’t be remembered as a Hall of Famer.