[Gotham Dark Knight]

Leaders and champions.
Those are the defining characteristics of the six men who will enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday.
Record-setting quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Warren Moon. Super Bowl-winning coach and television icon John Madden. Impregnable blocker Rayfield Wright. Versatile linebacker Harry Carson.
And Reggie White, the Minister of Defense. Quite a class.
Deep, versatile field enters Hall of Fame - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

Glad to see two Cowboys going in, Aikman and Wright. Moon had the stats especially if you count CFL service...Madden should have been in a long time ago. White was in a league all his own...but I just don't know about Carson...did LT pave the way for Carson?

[EmpireWF]

Harry Carson deserved to get in before LT. No reason to keep him from the Hall.

Anyway, his induction speech was tremendous. A prideful guy who can finally put all this behind him.

[Lefty Noob]

did LT pave the way for Carson?

Other way around, Gotham. Carson allowed LT to become LT. An all-around quality class, IMO.

[Gotham Dark Knight]

Originally Posted by Lefty Noob

Other way around, Gotham. Carson allowed LT to become LT. An all-around quality class, IMO.

See, I just don't know about that...talent?..yes...class guy?...yes...but Offensive Coordinators were busy trying to stop LT with their blocking schemes...making life a lot easier for Carson...I don't think too may offenses were saying, "gee, if we can just contain Carson, we can win this one..."

[EmpireWF]

Originally Posted by Gotham Dark Knight

See, I just don't know about that...talent?..yes...class guy?...yes...but Offensive Coordinaotrs were busy trying to stop LT with their blocking scemes...making life a lot easier for Carson...I don't think too may offenses were saying, "gee, if we can jsut contain Carson, we can win this one..."

Harry Carson helped bring LT along. Carson was one of the top LBers in the game before LT ever was in the NFL. He was the real leader of all those Giants teams.

[Gotham Dark Knight]

Originally Posted by EmpireWF

Harry Carson helped bring LT along. Carson was one of the top LBers in the game before LT ever was in the NFL. He was the real leader of all those Giants teams.

Carson and the Giants for that matter only got to be in the spot light after the arrival of LT...look I am not an LT fan...all I am saying is..."Harry Carson is now in the Hall because of LT"...take how you like...but even if he was the greatest linebacker since Butkus, he would not have a fan base to his name if the Giants had not ridden LT's coattails.

PS...I just looked it up ...Carson without LT...5 seasons 2 Pro Bowls...with LT...7 seasons, 7 Pro Bowls...LT is why he is in the Hall...

[EmpireWF]

Here's an excerpt from a Peter King SI article about why he voted for Carson in this year's HOF class...

My theory on Carson: A few guys in the room changed their minds. One of them, Cliff Christl of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, talked to me about his reservations, which I appreciated. He felt Carson was a good player but not an outstanding one. I've told Christl how I feel about Carson. Having covered the Giants for four years in the Bill Parcells glory years, I have always believed Carson deserved a spot in Canton, and I spoke up for him in each Hall of Fame meeting.

Carson did the one thing no defensive player ever gets enough credit for, even though it's the first thing every defensive coach talks about with his team every week: He defended the run. You've heard it a hundred times: If we don't stop the run, we can't win. And when the Giants contended consistently, the hallmark of that team was not the running game or Lawrence Taylor terrorizing quarterbacks. It was having opponents in second-and-9. And that was Carson's job. From 1981 to 1987, the peak of his career, when he was making the Pro Bowl every year as a run-stuffing inside linebacker, the Giants averaged 3.59 yards per opponents' rushing attempt.

Consider these three stats about that 3.59 over the seven-year period that Carson was at his peak:

1. The great Chicago Bears defense of 1985, one of the best of all time, with defensive tackles Steve McMichael and Dan Hampton and middle linebacker Mike Singletary, gave up an average of 3.64 yards per rush. The Giants beat that ... over a seven-year period.

2. Only three teams in 2005 were better than 3.59 yards per opponents' rush, for a single season.

3. Mike Shanahan said the Patriots had one of the best run defenses he'd ever seen before he faced them in the playoffs. New England allowed 3.62 per opponents' rush.

And consider that none of Carson's run-stopping 'mates over a seven-year period -- good but not star players like Erik Howard, Jim Burt, Gary Reasons, Kenny Hill, Byron Hunt, Greg Lasker, Herb Welch, Terry Kinard -- will ever be discussed for the Hall of Fame. And you think: if Carson was the on- and off-field leader of this group, if Bill Belichick considered Carson the best all-around linebacker he ever coached, and given the way that Carson stopped the run, shouldn't the guy make the Hall of Fame?

[Gotham Dark Knight]

Originally Posted by EmpireWF

Here's an excerpt from a Peter King SI article about why he voted for Carson in this year's HOF class...

Waste argument...Carson was a good player, but he is in Canton because the other teams feared LT, not Carson...LT's arrival cement the fate of Carson. Otherwise he would be a player forever on the bubble...no LT, no titles...no titles no Carson in the Hall, and no run of Pro Bowls...

I would even venture to say, its easier to defend the run, if you know your outside mate is going to play havoc with the pass...No LT, and Carson has to worry about the pass more, and that average per run would soar...