Memo to the HoF Committee: Start With Albert Lewis and Build From There

Guest Columnist

Jack M Silverstein

Tomorrow, the 49 voters of the Pro Football Hall of Fame will meet over Zoom to discuss the 15 modern-era finalists and vote five into Canton. 

And I have one request: remember the seniors and start with Albert Lewis.

Today’s senior committee logjam is at the forefront of the minds of voters and PFHOF president Jim Porter. As I laid out last year in my study of Steve McMichael’s Hall case, the logjam includes 81 players named to All-Decade teams between the 1920s and 1990s, plus 10 Associated Press NFL MVP winners, plus four Associated Press NFL Defensive Player of the Year winners, plus scores of other all-time great players, including Sterling Sharpe, who finished in the top six in the senior vote last year.

That senior pool now also includes 2023 semifinalist Henry Ellard and 1991 Defensive Player of the Year Pat Swilling, among others.

If voters aren’t careful on Tuesday, it could soon include Lewis.

Therefore I hope that voters solve the Lewis question first and build around him. Does he belong in the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Several voters think so. On “Eye Test for Two” recently, Hall of Fame Selection Committee members Clark Judge and Ira Kaufman welcomed fellow voter Tony Dungy, who was Lewis’s DBs coach in Kansas City. Dungy said that Lewis “graded out higher than ... every single player that I ever coached. Ninety-eight percent, 96%, week in, week out. Didn’t matter who we played, who he covered.”

Judge smartly stopped Dungy in his tracks and requested clarification. After all, Dungy coached Peyton Manning and Derrick Brooks as a head coach, both first-ballot Hall of Famers. He coached Hall of Famers Marvin Harrison, Edgerrin James, Warren Sapp and John Lynch, as well as 2023 finalist Ronde Barber. As an assistant in Pittsburgh he coached first-ballot Hall of Famer Rod Woodson. 

After Judge’s vital clarification, Dungy confirmed his statement, adding that if he was starting a secondary from scratch, he would take Lewis as his starting left cornerback, with Mel Blount as his starting right cornerback.

“Marty Schottenheimer, who was our head coach when I was there, believed in man-to-man coverage,” Dungy said. “(Lewis) was phenomenal. He was a highly motivated guy. Practiced hard. He tackled. He did everything you could ask for as well as cover his guy man-to-man. Deion Sanders covered his guy man-to-man — he didn’t do much else. Albert Lewis covered his guy just as well, wasn’t as flashy, and got it done. A guy who would tackle, block kicks, do whatever it took to win games.”

So picture this: Vahe Gregorian presents Lewis’s case, and then Dungy steps in and repeats the above. Then Rick Gosselin, probably the preeminent special teams expert among NFL reporters, adds to what Dungy and Gregorian said, noting that Lewis is the modern-era career leader in blocked punts with 10. Then Judge adds his support. Perhaps others do too.

Voters clearly think highly of Lewis: they voted him from the preliminary list to the semis and from the semis to the finals. If they hear all of those arguments and more, and come to believe that Lewis belongs in the Hall, then I believe they have an obligation to vote him in and determine the other four members of the class from there.

The math backs it up.

By voting for Lewis now and making someone wait (namely Ronde Barber or Zach Thomas), voters prevent yet another worthy player from sinking into the depths of the senior committee where, from 2004 to last year, the average wait time to induction was 18.2 years AFTER becoming a senior.

Based on voting trends, the guys who Lewis could most realistically bump out of the Class of 2023 are all locks to eventually get in. Since the start of the semifinalist round in 2004, every first-ballot semifinalist has either reached Canton as a modern or is currently on the ballot. The longest wait for any first-ballot semifinalist is 11 years. The longest wait for any first-ballot finalist is six years. For the past decade, the longest wait for any player who reaches the top 10 in his first year of eligibility is three years.

That means that of the 15 2023 finalists, 11 are locks:

• Torry Holt (first-ballot semifinalist in 2015)

• Ronde Barber (first-ballot semifinalist in 2018)

• Patrick Willis (first-ballot semifinalist in 2020)

• Reggie Wayne (first-ballot finalist in 2020)

• Jared Allen (first-ballot finalist in 2021)

• Devin Hester, Andre Johnson and DeMarcus Ware (first-ballot finalists in 2022)

• Dwight Freeney, Darrelle Revis and Joe Thomas (first-ballot finalists this year)

That leaves three players other than Lewis: Willie Anderson, Zach Thomas and Darren Woodson. Thomas and Anderson each first made the finals within their first 10 years of modern-era eligibility, Thomas in his 7th year, Anderson in his 9th. Since 2004, every player who reached the finals in his first 10 years made Canton as a modern-era candidate. Those recent trends say Thomas is doubly safe: since 2004, no player with four finalist selections has reached the senior pool.

That leaves only Darren Woodson, who is now a seven-time semifinalist and reached the semis twice in his first decade. Only two players reached the semis two or more times in their first 10 years and then reached the senior pool: Joe Jacoby and Steve Tasker. Jacoby didn’t reach the finals until his 18th year; Woodson is in his 15th. Tasker never reached the finals. So the odds are in Woodson’s favor too based on voting trends.

Add it all up and there is only one 2023 finalist in danger of falling to the senior committee and, as a result, potentially never reaching Canton: 

Albert Lewis.

So start with Lewis. Talk him through. Listen to Gregorian, Dungy, Gosselin and others. Decide if you think he belongs in Canton. If you think he does, vote him in and build around him. Because otherwise, these are the two outcomes:

1. Albert Lewis is in the Class of 2023 and Barber or Thomas or anyone else is in the Class of 2024 or 2025, etc.

2. Barber or Thomas or whomever is in the Class of 2023 and Albert Lewis perhaps never reaches Canton at all

A common refrain in Hall talk today is wondering why a given player is getting “stuck” as a semifinalist or finalist. The reality is that once you’re a semifinalist, especially at an early year, or repeatedly, or both, you’re a mathematical lock. So evaluate Albert Lewis and build from there. Because the late-ballot modern-era candidate you let slip today is the senior you’re arguing about tomorrow.

Jack M Silverstein (@readjack) is Chicago’s sports historian, a Pro Football Hall of Fame analyst and a member of the Not In the Hall of Fame PFHOF committee. For his explanation on how the Class of 2023 might break, click here.