State Your Case: Leon Gray

By John Turney 

Leon Gray is a name known to almost no one but hardcore NFL fans today ... and that's unfortunate. Because Leon Gray was a Hall-of-Fame talent who, as New England's left tackle in the 1970s, joined guard John Hannah as part of an offensive-line combo that -- at its peak -- was every bit as formidable as the Raiders' left-side duo of Hall-of-Famers Art Shell and Gene Upshaw.

"Leon Gray and John Hannah?" former New England coach Bill Belichick once said. "That’s as good a left side as you can get."

Hannah needs no introduction. As a first-ballot Hall of Famer, he's one of the best left guards to play the game. But Leon Gray? He's a virtual unknown, with so little support from the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame's Board of Selectors that he's never been a finalist or semifinalist, and that's hard to understand.

But don't listen to me. Listen to Hannah, who praised his former partner when Hannah was enshrined in Canton in 1991.

"There is not a better offensive tackle that ever played in the NFL,"he said. "Leon could dance. He had great power. He had great instincts. Leon was just an amazing athlete.

"He broke my string of being named Offensive Lineman of the Year. It was an award they gave every year at that time, and I’d won a few times in a row. He broke my string, and I was glad for him. He deserved it. He should absolutely be in the Hall of Fame."

But he's not. And he's never been close.

A four-time Pro Bowl pick (1976, ’78, ’79, ’81), three-time first-team All-Pro and seven-time first-or-second-team All-AFC choice, Gray anchored an offensive line that powered the NFL’s most dominant rushing attack. In fact, it was during his tenure that the Patriots’ run game produced some of the league’s most historic single-season performances.

One occurred in 1978 when New England racked up 3,165 rushing yards, a mark that remains the fourth-highest in NFL history, trailing only the 1948 AAFC San Francisco 49ers (recently validated) and the 2019 and 2024 Baltimore Ravens, led by Lamar Jackson. That same year, the Patriots scored 30 rushing touchdowns, still tied for sixth all-time.

An aberration? Hardly. Only two years before, the Patriots in 1976 rushed for 2,948 yards (14th all-time), with 24 touchdowns and an impressive 5.0 yards per carry average.

That was the beginning of what should have been a long and happy career with the Patriots. Except it wasn't. After the 1978 season, Gray was traded to the Houston Oilers in a salary dispute ... and I'll call on Hannah again to give us the details, as told to J.T. Keith of the Mississippi Clarion Ledger.

"In 1976," Hannah said, "Upshaw suggested that the offensive linemen selected to the Pro Bowl should write their salary on a piece of paper and put it in a hat. That way, no one knew whose the salary belonged to. Hannah said they started reading out the salaries − $105,000, $102,000, $98,500, $110,000, $30,000 and $28,500.

When Hannah returned to his hotel room, he got a call from Gray.

"Which one were you?" Gray asked.

Hannah said he was $30,000. Gray said he was $28,500."

Yikes.

The following season, both Gray and Hannah held out, missing the first three games, but new contracts never materialized. After the 1978 season, the Oilers intervened and offered New England a first-round pick (plus a sixth-rounder) for Gray, and the Patriots jumped -- sending a premier tackle to a conference opponent to block for Earl Campbell. Hannah later admitted the move was such a colossal mistake that it erased New England's Super Bowl hopes.

But look what it did for Houston. There, Gray elevated Campbell’s game, boosting the star running back’s per-game rushing total by 10 yards in 1979 and an additional 20 the following season. That's the good news. The bad? That story didn't end happily ever after there, either, with Gray -- again dissatisfied with his contract -- traded to New Orleans in 1982 for quarterback Archie Manning, with Saints' coach Bum Phillips -- the man who traded for Gray in 1979 -- behind the deal.

The trade is notable because it's extraordinary. Seldom has an offensive lineman been traded for the highest-paid quarterback in the league But that's a testament to how highly Gray was regarded. Critics can ... and have ... labeled him as greedy, but that's as unfair as it is wrong. Raised in poverty, Gray was simply driven to secure fair compensation.

In New England, he explained, "John Hannah and I felt we were integral parts of the club. If we were among the best ... we deserved to be paid for it."

So he was. After his trade to Houston, the Oilers made Gray the NFL's highest-paid offensive lineman, though he had to take a bit of a winding road to get there. Miami's third-round draft pick in 1973, the Jackson State alum was waived by the Dolphins and claimed by New England, so starved for talented players that it made Gray its starting left tackle about a month into the season.

But then something unexpected happened: Leon Gray not only didn't go away; he anchored the position for five stellar years as the franchise became one of the NFL's best.  And he did it with dominance. Gray’s run-blocking was ferocious, earning him descriptions like "devastating," "mauler" and "dominant."

"I'm not a hard hitter," he told SPORT magazine, "but John Hannah is a load.”

Such modesty defined Gray, once called “self-effacing and highly intelligent." But he was more than that. He was such a positive influence on the field and in the locker room that he became a proverbial team leader.

"I remember that Leon always had a smile in the locker room," said the Patriots' Steve Grogan, the quarterback whose blind side Gray protected.

But that was his nature. While at Jackson State, Gray excelled in academics and music. In fact, he was a trumpet player who received a scholarship for music ... not football ... and who was in the Who's Who of American College Students directory. But his football legacy warrants much more than that; it warrants consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Who’s Who of pro football greats.

"There's nobody better than Leon Gray,"  former Oilers' defensive end and Hall-of-Famer Elvin Bethea said of Gray shortly after he died in 2001 at 49.

Teammate Robert Brazile, another Hall of Famer, agreed.

"He should be in the Hall of Fame," he said. "If you ask John Hannah who made him a Hall of Famer, he will tell you, 'Leon Gray.' "

That's good enough for me, and it should be enough for Hall voters to take a long, hard look at Gray's resume. If and when they do, they'll find that his three consensus All-Pro seasons are as many as Gary Zimmerman, Orlando Pace, Dan Dierdorf, Rayfield Wright and Tony Boselli -- all of whom have busts in Canton. Furthermore, they're more than Hall-of-Famers Art Shell, Jimbo Covert, Bob St. Clair, Jackie Slater, Mike McCormack and Winston Hill.

But that's not all. Among tackles in the Hall, only Anthony Munoz, Bob Brown, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Slater and Ron Yary had more of the various Offensive Lineman-of-the-Year awards that were available.

So we've established that Gray checks all the boxes for honors. What he doesn't check are titles, with his teams failing to break through to Super Bowls. Nor was he an all-decade choice. He wasn't a member of the 1970s' team, and maybe those factors hindered his chances for the Hall, I don't know.

Or maybe it was that he shifted franchises or didn't play long enough to satisfy voters. Gray retired after 11 seasons in an era when longevity mattered more than it does now. All I know is that if offensive linemen Jimbo Covert (nine seasons) and Tony Boselli (seven) can reach Canton after abbreviated careers, maybe Leon Gray can, too.

He should. He was as accomplished as many tackles who've been enshrined. His peers say so, and the awards say so. Hall-of-Fame voters don't ... at least not yet ... and it's well past time they join the chorus.