Saturday, February 23, 2019

Hall of Fame All-Time AFL Team

LOOKING BACK
By John Turney

On January 14, 1970, the Pro Football Hall of Fame released the list of the All-Time AFL Team. The teams were compiled as a result of a vote of the AFL members of the Hall of Fame’s Board of Selectors.

This is the team they selected (graphic by Wikipedia)—

All great players, but did all of them deserve to be on it? Or are people on the Second-team more worthy to be First-teamers?

This is not a criticism of the voters at the time. They, in good faith, voted for who they thought should be on the team. But we do get to ask if Joe Namath over Len Dawson was the best choice for an honor that is supposed to span the length of a decade. The vote was taken the day before the Chiefs beat the Vikings in Super Bowl IV.  Had the vote been taken after that game would the vote have been different?

Namath was a legend for his Super Bowl III win over the Colts and was a terrific talent and his "eye test" is likely superior to Dawson. But, Dawson won three AFL titles and one Super Bowl. His stats were superior to Namath's. Namath, however, was an AFL MVP in 1968 and 1969 and Dawson didn't win any such awards.

In short, if you look at peak Namath wins. If you look at the length of accomplishments, the "decade" part of the equation Dawson wins.

So, with that in mind, we've reviewed the First-team of the Official AFL All-Time team to who we think had slightly stronger cases than some of those chosen. Most selections were on the money. But a few deserve some scrutiny.

The highlighted selections are the ones we think there should be a change—
In addition to Dawson, we think Abner Haynes and Cookie Gilchrist has slightly better AFL careers than Paul Lowe and Clem Daniels. Haynes and Gilchrist were AFL MVP/POY winners and part of AFL championships and had superior stats, though close, than the others.

On defense, Earl Faison played long enough and was superior to MaysRich Jackson was our original choice but after careful consideration decided he didn't play long enough so we've updated the teams. Jackson was All-AFL twice and was good in 1967 but in 1966 he was a backup in Oakland really, had just three full seasons and that does not make a decade. We also think that Chiefs DT Buck Buchanan should have been First-team over Antwine.

We also think George Webster's three seasons was not enough to qualify for an All-Decade team. At his peak, he rivals Bobby Bell as the best OLBer in AFL history, but in our view, Mike Stratton's longevity and also pretty high peak deserved the honor.

As for the Coach, Stram, when you included Super Bowl IV, deserved the top slot.

We also had a few disagreements on the Second-team, but film review and research of gamebooks give us some insights that help separate top-notch players.

With that qualification here is our AFL All-Decade picks:
Here is an update. These are the top talents of the AFL, the best players who played in the AFL but some of them only played 3-4 years and are not really qualified to be on an All-Decade team. The hardest choice might have been halfback where lots of talented guys played like Paul Lowe and Abner Haynes but we went with Daniels. But we fully admit several others fit there.

16 comments:

  1. John, interesting and agreed that "time" is the ultimate test....yes Dawson had more titles, but Namath is ranked properly #1 due to his/SBIII impact on history....you will also recall clearly that his signing with the Jets (formerly the laughingstock Titans) instead of the Cardinals gave the AFL significant legitemacy at a time when it was not clear that they would remain competitive in the NFL-AFL draft wars....other: a bigger issue (not unlike MLB) is who are legitemate HoFers....love to hear your comments as to why Billy Shaw and Don Maynard belong....I still don't get those two....and brief though his peak was, Tombstone Jackson is like a Gayle Sayers of DEs for me....thoughts?

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  2. Dawson>Namath when it comes to All-Decade consideration. 3 titles to 1. Both had 1 SB.

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  3. Hey JT and JHolt where would you rank Ron Mix among all time tackles NFL/AFL combined? Does he compare to Walter Jones?

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  4. good question....I'm sort of with Dr.Z in that the game has to be divided into eras....while there are issues some of us "old school" NFL fans have with quality of AFL (especially first 5-6 years), Ron Mix was a first round pick of the Baltimore Colts before signing with Chargers.....arguably the greatest post-WWII/pre-merger tackles were Roosevelt Brown, Jim Parker (1st 1/2 of his career), Forrest Gregg (right side)...does Ron Mix belong in this group? I certainly think so....these guys were amazing technicians during the era where hands weren't supposed to be used to block....Walter Jones? an all-time great along with Joe Thomas as "moderns".....I will defer to John's superior expertise should he have comments/rebuttal };->

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  5. On tape Mix just seems smooth like Jones in a way. Maybe Rayfield Wright would be better comp because he wasn't allowed to use hands most of his career either.

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  6. Great stuff! I agree with the comment re: Maynard. I know he was the all-time leader in receiving yards in the AFL but he was hardly ever an all-pro selection. Strange, eh? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Even in his great '67 campaign no major source picked him as 1st team all-pro, most of them picked his teammate George Sauer as 1st team. So at the time it seems most thought Sauer was better than Maynard. Even the New York Daily News, the Jets hometown paper, chose Sauer (joining Alworth) over Maynard on their 1st team, relegating Maynard to the 2nd team. Obviously at receiver it's Alworth and then everybody else. My choices w/b Alworth and Powell 1st team and then Hennigan and Sauer 2nd team. Lionel Taylor is a super solid choice though. I'd also switch Nance and Haynes (having Nance be 1st team) and also switch Talamini and Budde (Talamini is 1st team). Great selections though. Thanks.

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    1. All your suggestions good, those are all positions where it's hard to separate guys and no one "right" answers exist.

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  7. Curious what you guys thought of Walt Sweeney. In thinking mans guide to pro football I believe Al Davis said he was one of the best ever.

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    1. We added a "Talent" team and we put Sweeney on it. His size and speed... maybe a little like Steve Hutchinson...for his day...

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  8. Boy did you start a shit storm over at the RemembertheAFL site ....

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    1. I went to the link. I confused them because the initial post ad two first teams, that was a typo. But they are not coming to read the article, so they don't get that guys who played 3-4 years were not qualified to be "decade" picks.

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    2. Yes, I had to explain that four or five times.

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  9. https://www.facebook.com/groups/297706681489/permalink/10157449534736490/

    Remember the AFL

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  10. Is it crazy to claim that Lance Alworth is the second or third best receiver ever?

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  11. I know Tyrer and Mix had all the honors during the Sixties and Seventies, but your AFL Talent team has Winston Hill. I believe he should be in the Hall, but do you guys believe his talent level matched his production ? Though, the Jets were a passing team.

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