Largent - Monk

[Bart]

I've listened to very little of the sports talk beeswax the past couple months, so tonight when I tuned in to a program while driving, Ifound it was business as usual. A sports guru was championing Art Monk for the hall of fame. It's not surprising to hear someone ramble on and on about the virtues of an overlookedblack candidate, it's a common occurrence. I don't expect anyone to bring up a forgotten white player and plead his case.. However, as I was about to exit my vehicle I was struck by something the speaker said, which caused me to do a double take.


Can't remember the exact words, but he was bothered by the fact of Steve Largent being in the HOF, while Monk was not!!You can't always go by the numbers was his mantra, you have to go by his value to the team or something to that effect. My radar was alerted and of course I couldn't shut off the radio, but had to sit and listen, waiting for the name of the expert, knowing it had to be a master of the craft. To promote Art Monk is one thing, but to denigrate Largent in the same breath takes a lot of Hutzpah! Turns out it was someone named Len Shapiro, who writes for the Washington Post. Never heard of him previously.


Now, why does he down play numbers when favoring his prize over Largent? Could it be because Steve's numbers are better? If we compare the two we find that Steve hadconsiderablymore TD's, a much higher percentage of yards per catch and more total receiving yards,while playing nearly 25 fewer games! Now, on the very same segment, Troy Aikman was being trashed for being in the HOF and NOT havinggreat numbers. Having poorer stats than Largent doesn't make Monk a lesser player, but Aikman doesn't get the same benefit in comparison to his peers.


Largent: Catches, Total Yards, YPC. and Td's.


819 13089 16.0 100


Monk:


940 12721 13.5 68


Largent also had 8- thousand yard seasons, Monk had 5.

 

[Don Wassall]

Terry Bradshaw didn't have great stats -- but he won four Super Bowl rings. No one questioned his qualifications to get into Canton. Troy Aikman was a tremendously accurate and intelligent quarterback who sacrificed personal statistics to help the running game flourish. He executed whatever game plan he was given, and won three Super Bowl rings. The bigger the game the better Aikman performed. Anyone who would deny Aikman his place in the Hall of Fame is beyond ignorant, or perhaps toofilled withwhite self-hatredto the point that he can't think rationally.


Largent was the Jerry Rice of his time, shattering virtually all receiving records of importance. When he retired he was the most successful receiver in NFL history. Art Monk was a possession receiver in the throw happy era that came right after Largent, where less-than-legends like Brett Perriman and Herman Moore were catching over 100 passes per season. Neither is mentioned when talking about all-time greats.


I believe, looking at his overall career, which included playing for2 Super Bowl winners, that Monk should be in the Hall of Fame. But certainly not by degrading the wonderful, surefire Hall of Fame career of Steve Largent. Anyone who would do that either has an agenda, or is, like so many sports "journalists" today, unable to dolittle more than smirkingly recite random tidbits of information without being able to put them in their proper comparative and historical context.Edited by: Don Wassall

 

[Deus Vult]

Some idiot on Fox radio last evening held forth on how Troy Aikman should not have been voted into the NFL Hall of Fame. He made his argument on the basis of stats. Anyone who remembers Troy as QB of those great Dallas teams remembers that Troy ran a ball-control offense, designed to eat clock and produce eventual points. His mission was to keep the other teams defense on the field, and his defense off the field. He threw short passes and mixed in the run. He did what it took to win, not pad his stats.

Troy has been taking sh*t from these know-it-alls for a long time. I will always believe he did not win the Heisman Trophy because he was too blonde and too handsome. So many of the Heisman voters are brainwashed; the rest, as Don says, have agendas. They were not going to vote for a blonde California dude from UCLA when they could assuage their own PC-ness by voting for a black QB, Rodney Peete. Aikman was clearly the better player.

It was same type of anti-white, anti-conservative backlash that stole the Heisman from Peyton Manning, giving it instead to that black DB from Michigan. He was just the recipient of the anti-Peyton movement, which was a movement against the whitebread Manning (upper-middle class, good grades, no police record, no drug/alcohol addictions, genteel parents who are still together, not wigger-like, etc). Danny Wuerffel winning the Heisman hurt the people-with-agenda, and they were not going to tolerate it again!

(Wuerffel, by the way, is a BIG race-liberal)

 

[jaxvid]

I don't know about an anti-conservative backlash causing Charles Woodson to beat out Peyton Manning for the Heismann. I think it was more of a desire to give it to a defensive player for once more then any other reason.

White QB's often win the Heismann, and deservedly so. I think a good argument can be made that Manning deserved to win that year. However, I watched every minute of Michigan football that year and Charles Woodson had a season for the ages. He did everything for them. He was a total shutdown cornerback and picked off some critical passes. He returned punts, a couple for TD's that won games for the Wolverines. And he played some receiver and caught some big passes too.

Michigan won the National title that year and it was really because of Woodson. Tennessee did not do as well. A-hole Fulmer coach of the Volunteers cheated Michigan out of an undisputed national championship by dropping them 2 spots in his coach poll vote AFTER Michigan had WON the Rosebowl. It was a typically unclassy act by the caste-sytem whore. (Michigan runs a caste-sytem program too, maybe a little better then Tennessee, but not much---so I am not singling them out). But Fulmer is a jerk.

Turns out Woodson is a jerk too. But that does not change what he meant to Michigan in 1997 or why he won the award.

 

[sport historian]

Tennessee lost badly to Florida early in the 1997 season and Manning didn't play well in that game. Had Tennessee beaten Florida with a great performance by Manning, he would almost cetainly have won the Heisman that year.

The reputation of "can't win the big ones" has followed Peyton Manning to this day. There is only one way to get rid of it, win a Super Bowl.

 

[Burts]

Turns out it was someone named Len Shapiro, who writes for the Washington Post. Never heard of him previously.


Every time it's election time for the HOF, the Washington media trots out their "Monk should be in the HOF" mantra. Having read and heard it for years, I'm pretty sick of it. No doubt he was a better than average player, but the last several years of his career, his yards per catch average was less than the average at his position, and even though he was on teams that won the Super Bowl, he wasn't the clear-cut "go-to-guy" on some of those teams.

IMHO, he's borderline, at best.

 

[Deus Vult]

Manning was the media front-runner from the time he announced he would return for his senior season. By the end of the year, though he'd had a great year, there were vocal sportswriters actively promoting Woodson and Ryan Leaf.

Woodson, Leaf and Randy Moss all earned the right to be Heisman finalists; none was undeservedly annointed. But Manning should have won, and would have it not for the backlash. Terry Bradshaw called it "a damned disgrace."

 

[GreatLakeState]

Aikman didn't win the Heisman because he was "too blond" ... or because
Barry Sanders had one of the all-time great seasons in 1988?

 

[Deus Vult]

Rodney Peete edged out Aikman in 1989.

 

[Deacon]

link

Steve Largent among the league's all-time top 50:

Receptions: 11
Receiving yards: 7
Receiving TDs:5t
Yards from scrimmage: 24
Rush/Receive TDs: 14t

Those are some fantastic records held by Mr. Largent that I didn't even know about. Edited by: Deacon

 

[White Shogun]

Aikman didn't win the Heisman because he was "too blond" ... or because
Barry Sanders had one of the all-time great seasons in 1988?

Strawman.

Unless I missed a post in this thread somewhere, you are making a statement about Aikman as though it were made by someone else, then rebutting your own argument.

Are you attempting to bait someone into discussing Aikman and Sanders? Or are you just being 'objective' again?

EDITED TO ADD: Jaxvid commented in this same thread that Charles Woodson deserved the Heisman over Manning. Is that objective enough for you? Is that praising of a black athlete enough for you? Edited by: White Shogun

 

[Colonel_Reb]

Archie Manning has said on TV that he believes "they" didn't want another clean cut QB from the South to win the Heisman back to back. He might as well have said white. I think there is still a huge bias against white Southern players. Archie experienced it, just as the Alabama football team did in 1966.

 

[GreatLakeState]

It's a moot point -- Aikman could have been the blackest guy in American
and he would not have won, because that was the same year Barry
Sanders was breaking records.

Rodney Peete didn't beat out Aikman in '89 because they were in the NFL
then, but I believe he did win more games that year with the Lions than
Aikman did with the Cowboys.

No, I don't support Charles Woodson because, having known about his
character long before most, I knew he was not someone I want
representing my state.

 

[Bart]

Rodney Peete didn't beat out Aikman in '89 because they were in the NFL
then, but I believe he did win more games that year with the Lions than
Aikman did with the Cowboys.

Somebody from ESPN will read this post and get the idea for a new topic. " How in the hell did Troy Aikman get into the HOF before Rodney Peete? "

 

[Triad]

1988 Heisman voting:
1. Barry Sanders
2. Rodney Peete
3. Troy Aikman
4. Steve Walsh
5. Major Harris