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List of Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
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The Pro Football Hall of Fame includes players, coaches, and contributors (e.g., owners, general managers and team or league officials or other non-players) who have "made outstanding contributions to professional football". The charter class of seventeen was selected in 1963.[1]

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The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio

Enshrinees are selected by a 48-person selection committee which meets each year at the time and location of the Super Bowl. Current rules of the committee stipulate that between four and eight individuals are selected each year.[2] Any person may nominate an individual to the hall, provided the nominee has been retired for at least five years. Not including the charter class, 76 players have been inducted in their first year of eligibility.[3]

In addition to the regular selection committee, which primarily focuses on contributions made over the past approximately thirty seasons, a nine-member seniors committee (which is a subset of the larger committee) submits two nominees each year whose contributions came prior to 1985.[2] These nominees are referred as "seniors nominees" (formerly "old-timer" nominees).[4]

In 2020, a special Blue-Ribbon Panel selected an additional 15 new members, known as the "Centennial Slate", to be inducted into the Hall of Fame to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Football League (NFL).[5]

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Inductees

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All 32 active NFL teams have at least one player in the Hall of Fame who played for their team at some point in that player's career, with the Houston Texans (Andre Johnson, class of 2024) and Jacksonville Jaguars (Tony Boselli, class of 2022) being the last two teams to gain representation.[6] Ray Guy was the first full-time punter inducted (class of 2014), while Devin Hester was the first primary return specialist (class of 2024).[7] As of 2024, both are the only honorees at their respective positions.[8][9][10]

The hall is not officially affiliated with the National Football League (NFL), although, as of 2022, all but one enshrinee, Billy Shaw, played in the NFL for at least a portion of his career.[11] In addition to Shaw, there are 37 other inductees who spent all or part of their careers in the American Football League that merged with the NFL. Shaw was the only player not to make the formal transition to the NFL, as he had retired the year before the merger.[12] Three players, Red Grange, Ray Flaherty, Mike Michalske, played a portion of their career in the first American Football League from 1926. Ken Strong is the lone Hall of Fame inductee who played during the second iteration of the American Football League from 1936. Strong is also one of two Hall of Famers (the other being Sid Luckman) to play in the American Association. Fifteen inductees spent some of their playing career in the All-America Football Conference during the late 1940s. Five players played at least one year in the Ohio League, the predecessor to the NFL. Six players or coaches who spent part of their careers in the original incarnation of the United States Football League (USFL) have been inducted.[13] Two coaches (Marv Levy,[14] Bud Grant[15]), one administrator (Jim Finks), and five players (Warren Moon,[16] Fred Biletnikoff, John Henry Johnson, Don Maynard, Arnie Weinmeister) who spent part of their careers in the Canadian Football League (CFL) have been inducted. Of these inductees, three have been or are scheduled to be inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame: Marv Levy, Warren Moon and Bud Grant. Four players, Larry Csonka, Leroy Kelly, Don Maynard, and Paul Warfield, played a portion of their career in the short-lived World Football League. Fritz Pollard is the only player to play in the Anthracite League's only season. One player (Kurt Warner) and one owner (Pat Bowlen) made significant contributions in the Arena Football League; Warner and Art McNally are also the only NFL Europe/World League alumni in the Hall. Terrell Owens played one season of professional football in the Indoor Football League and, after his induction, played in Fan Controlled Football. Bill Walsh and Ken Stabler each played one season in the Continental Football League.

Each entry includes the year of induction (i.e., "class"), position(s) played, team(s) each was associated with, and tenures with each team. As some inductees were both players and coaches, the position indicated here is the position indicated on the Hall of Fame website.[17] The Pro Football Hall of Fame website does not include CFL, USFL, WFL, indoor football leagues, and other lesser known league teams. The Canadian Football League and the Arena Football League both have their own halls of fame. NFL, American Football League, All-America Football Conference, and Ohio League (listed as pre-NFL) teams are recognized in the Hall of Fame. The list is complete through the Class of 2025.

Sorting tips:

  • Sorting by position will line up players by the year they were inducted
  • Sorting by position also groups all similar positions together
    • Running backs, halfbacks, fullbacks are grouped together
    • Linebackers, middle linebackers, outside linebackers are grouped together
    • Ends and flankers are grouped with wide receivers
    • General managers and team administrators are grouped together
  • Sorting by teams groups all names of a franchise together, i.e., all Cardinal teams listed under Arizona Cardinals
  • When sorting, a person has a row for every team he has been with
More information Elected in 1st year of eligibility**, Elected 1st year as a finalist ^ but not first year of eligibility ...
More information Inductee, Class ...

Notes:

1 Selected in first year of eligibility[22]
2 Charter member[23]
3 Senior nominee[4]
4 Heisman Trophy Winner[24]
5 As head coach of the Akron Pros in 1921, Fritz Pollard became the first African American coach in NFL history.[25]
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Inductees who have played for non-NFL teams

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Through 2021, Billy Shaw is the only player in the Hall of Fame who has never played in the NFL; he played the entirety of his career with the Buffalo Bills in the AFL. While the hall recognizes NFL teams which had previously been in the AFL, AAFC, or been independent/Ohio League, other professional football league's franchises are not considered primary teams to the individuals who have contributed to them. Here is a list of individuals who have contributed to other professional leagues at some point in their career. As of 2022, four players have contributed to AFL I, one to AFL II, one to AFL III, three to the American Association, three to the Arena Football League, one to the Indoor Football League, eleven to the Canadian Football League, four to the World Football League, seven to the United States Football League, two to the Continental Football League, two for NFL Europe, one for the 1960s United Football League, one for Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit, and eleven played for independent teams (several of which played in the NFL at some point). The Ohio League had five individuals contribute, the All-America Football Conference had fifteen, and the American Football League which merged with the NFL had thirty-nine Hall of Famers play for the league. Bill Polian founded the Alliance of American Football, but he was inducted into the hall in 2015 and the league started in 2019. As previously stated, for CFL stars, there is a corresponding Canadian Football Hall of Fame; only one player, Warren Moon, and two coaches, Bud Grant and Marv Levy, are enshrined in both halls. Again for the Arena Football League, there is also a corresponding Arena Football Hall of Fame; similarly, one player, Kurt Warner, has been enshrined into both halls. The Indoor Football League has also established a Hall of Fame, of which Terrell Owens played one season, thus no players have been inducted into both halls. Owens has also played in the Fan Controlled Football since 2022, five years after his enshrinement into the Hall.

(Note that this list only includes contributors in the same field for which they were inducted; thus, though Doak Walker and Steve Van Buren were inducted to the Hall of Fame as players, their coaching work in the Continental Football League is not counted here.)

More information Inductee, Class ...

"*" indicates that a team had at one point in their existence participated in the NFL.

The following are current and defunct professional football leagues which as of 2020 have had no Pro Football Hall of Fame Inductees play for:

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Notes

  1. As a Chicago Bears player. Was sent to their minor-league affiliate for one game.

References

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