This is always one of the special weeks of the year.
We have the first NFL game of the year, the Hall Of Fame showdown, featuring the Arizona Cardinals and Carolina Panthers Thursday night at Tom Benson Stadium in Canton, Ohio. Saturday, there will be five new enshrinees onto the Pro Football Hall of Fame and I’ll be honored to be the traffic cop of SiriusXM NFL Radio’s coverage of the ceremonies starting at noon on Channel 88.
What’s amazing to me is with all of the folks who played, coached, or administrated the game, is that there’s under 400 enshrinees in the Hall. The increase of five will bring the number of honorees to 387, which still shows you have to be the best of the very best to gain inclusion into this very exclusive club.
Some random thoughts here on each of the 2026 class:
Drew Brees
My first interaction with Drew was circa 1999 in Scottsdale, Arizona, as Drew was selected to that year’s Playboy All-American team, which was put together by legendary former Dallas Cowboys executive, Pro Football HOF and a longtime friend of mine, the late, great, Gil Brandt.
Gil invited me and my producer to Arizona to meet the likes of Ricky Williams, Brees and the rest of the team. I wound up getting about a 15-minute interview with Brees for my Sports Fan Radio show and I could tell right away this Purdue QB could be special as, for his age, he was quite focused and detail oriented, despite being supposedly too small and couldn’t throw the ball far.
While Brees would eventually go on to make 13 Pro Bowls, lead the NFL in passing yards seven times and help the New Orleans Saints to a Super Bowl championship, there’s always that “what if” with him. After he left the Chargers in 2005, Brees was all set to join the Miami Dolphins, then coached by some guy named Nick Saban.
It’s certainly a curiosity as if Brees would have been cleared of his shoulder injury by Miami doctors and how he would have mixed in with Saban, who famously went back to the collegiate game to begin his eventual “GOAT” status at LSU and Alabama.
Would Miami have regained their Super Bowl status, somewhere they haven’t been in over 50 years? We’ll never know.
Roger Craig
The man I share a birthdate with, as he’s five years older. Roger always seemed to be overshadowed. First, at Nebraska, as Mike Rozier dominated Tom Osborne’s backfield. Then, with the juggernaut San Francisco 49ers, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice got all the offensive attention with Charles Haley and Ronnie Lott leading the underrated defense.
Yet, legendary coach Bill Walsh knew what he had with the second round pick of the 1983 draft and how incredibly versatile he could be, so much so that, in his third season, Roger became first player to surpass 1,000 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards in the same season.
For a guy who caught only 16 passes in college career, Craig had over 550 for his pro career, as part of three title teams with the Niners. Craig played a year for the Los Angeles Raiders, then his last 2 with the Minnesota Vikings.
Larry Fitzgerald
A recent colleague of mine, having been part of a Monday night show called “Let’s Go” with a future HOF’er named Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald was simply class whom my colleague Todd Haley, Larry’s former offensive coordinator with the Arizona Cardinals, called arguably the finest player he ever coached. The third overall pick of the 2004 NFL Draft from Pitt, a Minneapolis product who learned at the feet of Randy Moss at Vikings camp, put up some Freak-like numbers, as his career stats include 1,432 receptions for 17,492 yards, which are both second in NFL history.
Larry Fitz ranks sixth on the all-time receiving touchdowns list with 121 and did this in the quiet of the desert as he would play in the post-season only four times in his brilliant career.
Who will ever forget his 64-yard touchdown from Kurt Warner that gave the Cards a lead late in Super Bowl XLIII, only to be outdone by the tippy toe catch by Santonio Holmes with 35 seconds left to give Pittsburgh their sixth (and most recent) championship.
Quiet class was Larry Fitz.
Luke Kuechly
The thing that immediately comes to mind with Luke Kuechly is that he made the HOF despite a relatively small number of games played with 118, as opposed to Brees, who played near 300 and Larry Fitzgerald with over 260. (Of course, they played double the seasons Luke did with his eight.)
Yet, you could count on at least 100 tackles a season from the 2012 Defensive Rookie of the Year, who won Defensive Player of the Year honors the following season and helped Carolina get to Super Bowl 50 where it lost to Denver.
However, a documented (at least) three concussions over his career led Luke to retire at age 28. He’ll be doing Panthers games on radio this year and, having interviewed him over the years, the radio audience (and I) would be smarter after listening to him.
Adam Vinatieri
Then, there’s Adam Vinatieri, who went from undrafted to a four-time Super Bowl champion, three with the New England Patriots, including game-winning kicks versus the “Greatest Show on Turf” St. Louis Rams and the Carolina Panthers and one with the Indianapolis Colts.
Vinatieri, along with my former NFL Radio colleague Dan Koppen, are among the few that can say they played with both Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. The South Dakota State product has his mark in the NFL Record Book for career points (2,673), consecutive field goals made (44), career field goals (599) and most seasons with 100-plus points (21).
When I first started going to the HOF around 2008, it seemed as if players of my childhood or when I was just getting started in sports media were getting in. Fast forward to now, I can distinctly remember commenting on or interacting with these players on my shows. I’m getting old, but always welcome the call to the Hall!