The Redskins Blog

Former RB Kelvin Bryant Honored In NC

(AP Photo)

On Thursday evening, the University of North Carolina inducted eleven sports figures into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. The event took place at the Raleigh Convention Center.

Included in the 2013 Hall of Fame Class was Tarboro, NC native and former Redskins Running Back Kelvin Bryant (1986-1990).

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Darrell Green: ‘Hometown Hall Of Famer’

(AP Photo)

Washington Redskins’ Hall-Of-Fame cornerback Darrell Green was honored this week by the Pro Football Hall of Fame and Allstate Insurance company as a “Hometown Hall of Famer” in his hometown of Houston.

Green on Tuesday was given the honor at his alma mater, Jones High School, and was presented a commemorative plaque that will be displayed at the school permanently, according to a release from the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

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With The 69th Selection, Redskins Pick…

AP Image

[Editor's Disclaimer: This is a story based on a fun fact, and contains speculation that is not meant to reflect that actual thoughts of Redskins' executives.  Any words from Redskins' executives are clearly defined and attributed.]

Let’s set the scene: The Redskins brass are huddled around one of 32 tables at the NFL Draft.  Last season didn’t go as expected, and the team needs to beef up an offense that ranked in the bottom of the league.  It’s time for a new look and a new face, as the team aggressively tries to dig out of the bottom of the NFC East.

In the first round, the team bolstered the offense with what they hope to be a franchise player and leader in the locker room.  The Redskins traded away their second round pick, and wait around until No. 69 overall in the third round.

With that pick, the Redskins select a future Hall Of Fame offensive lineman in Russ Grimm.

The year is 1981, and the table is located in the conference room of a New York hotel.  The team had finished 6-10 in 1980, causing owner Jack Kent Cooke to find a new franchise leader in Joe Gibbs.  The first overall selection was future Pro Bowl offensive tackle Mark May, who played nine strong seasons in Washington.

But the Redskins arguably found their best overall value with their second pick at No. 69–the same selection they will have in the third round of the 2012 NFL Draft.  With 30 days to go before the third round of the NFL Draft, the Redskins find themselves in an eerily similar situation as they were in the spring of ’81. Read more »

A Look At Sammy Baugh’s Bronzed Cleats

AP Image

On this date in 1937, the Boston Braves left the friendly confines of Fenway Park and headed south to the Nation’s Capital, their new permanent home.  Henceforth, they would always be known as your Washington Redskins.

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the move, the Pro Football Hall of Fame (@ProFootballHOF) tweeted out a trivia question to its followers this afternoon:

On this day in 1937 the @Redskins relocated from Boston to Washington D.C. Which game-changing QB was a rookie on the team that year?—
Pro Football HOF (@ProFootballHOF) February 13, 2012

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Hanburger Headlines ‘The NFL Experience’

The bronze bust of recently-inducted Redskins linebacker Chris Hanburger was a  featured display at “The NFL Experience” in Indianapolis this week.

This was the first opportunity for Redskins fans to see his bust up close and in person, outside of its home in Canton, Ohio.

Accompanying the bust, was a list of “The Hitman’s” accolades, including his given name: Christian Hanburger, Jr.  It still amazes me that he was selected 245th overall, which fell in the 18th (of 20 total) rounds of the 1965 draft.

That equates to every team in the league pass over the eventual Hall Of Famer an average of 17 times.  Good thing the Redskins got it right with their 11th overall pick in the 18th round.

If he were selected 245th overall in the 2011 draft, he would have been taken only eight picks before nose tackle Chris Neild, and nine picks before the end of the draft.

Oh, how the times have changed.

Also in the exhibit, there was a picture of head coach Joe Gibbs and his three Lombardi Trophies (via @Brianjh):

Nearby, was a display of all 45 previous Super Bowl rings.  In chronological order, here are three pieces of the Gibbs family jewelry collection: Read more »

Senior Bowl Hall Of Fame Full Of Redskins

As the Redskins coaching staff prepares to take the field with the South Team for the first Senior Bowl practices of the year, it inspired me to peruse the the Senior Bowl website for more interesting angles.

Jackpot.

It turns out that 11-of-95 listed Senior Bowl Hall Of Fame members have at least moderate Redskins ties, with six of those being well-known legends in the Nation’s Capital.  Here’s the complete list, starting with the star power:

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Dick Stanfel Dominant From U.S.F. To D.C.

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Earlier this week, the Redskins announced that former Redskins offensive guard Dick Stanfel was a Hall of Fame nominee via Senior Committee vote.

Given that Stanfel played in an NFL era around the time that my parents were born, I don’t truthfully remember his playing days.  But having done a bit of research on the interwebs, I’ve found a few nuggets worth passing along about the San Francisco product.

In college:

If you think the BCS college bowl system is awry now, imagine what it was like in 1951.  Stanfel’s University of San Francisco Dons were a perfect 9-0-0, having run the table on each of the opponents on the schedule.  That season, AP ranked them 14th in the nation, and the Dons were selected to play Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl at season’s end.  The only thing that the Dons had to do was leave their two African-American players, Burl Toler and Ollie Matson (a future Pro Football Hall of Famer) at home.

Taking a stand for equality, the team–led by head coach Joe Kuharich–refused, forfeiting the much needed money that would have saved the program.  As a result, the team was demoted to Division II the following year, and eventually folded.  It was a death penalty to a team and an ideal that was ahead of its time.

But this didn’t take anything away from the success of this group of players.  Three players from the 1951 would go on to star in the NFL, eventually being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  If Stanfel joins them, that will be the most from any college football squad, ever.

In the NFL: Read more »

Chris Hanburger Finds A Ride To The Super Bowl

Chris Hanburger waited 28 years to get into the Hall of Fame — although as I wrote earlier, he never really considered it “waiting” as such — and if you listened to his call in to the NFL Network’s Hall of Fame announcement show above (at about the 5:10 mark), it sounded like he might have to wait a little longer to make his first appearance as part of the class of 2011.

Host Rich Eisen asked if Hanburger was getting on a plane tonight to get to Dallas to be part of the Super Bowl coin-flip, and Hanburger sounded more than a little skeptical. “Well, not tonight,” he said. “Hopefully it’s gonna happen tomorrow. I’ve gotta catch a flight out of South Carolina, go into North Carolina, and then jump on a plane there and head to Dallas. I guess we’ll make it, if the weather cooperates.”

“Yeah, I hear you,” Eisen said, sounding equally skeptical. “You and me both.” The weather in Dallas has ranged from bad to atrocious over this Super Bowl week, and there was no guarantee that commercial airlines were going to be able to get the Redskins great to Texas in time.

That problem has since been solved: Hanburger will make the trip to Dallas on Redskins owner Daniel Snyder’s private jet, and he’s expected to be there in plenty of time. After a 28 year wait, there’s no way Chris Hanburger get anything less than the full Hall of Fame experience.

One other Hanburger note: his first phone interview after the announcement was with Larry Michael for Redskins.com TV. It’s worth watching, and you can check it out below.

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Chris Hanburger Pleased To Be Elected To Hall Of Fame After All

Former Redskins linebacker Chris Hanburger is excited to be elected into the Hall Of Fame — “just thrilled to death,” the nine-time Pro Bowler says — but it’s not something that he’s been overly concerned about.

“After all these years, it was never anything that I gave a lot of thought to,” Hanburger says, “because I’ve always felt that there are just so many people that have played the game before I ever played, and players that I played with, and certainly players that are playing now and will play after them, and there’s just going to be so many deserving people and they’ll never even get nominated. So just to be nominated was a tremendous honor, and of course if you make it in there, that’s just icing on the cake.”

Hanburger may not have been concerned about being honored in Canton, but plenty of other people considered it a huge oversight.

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David Elfin Discusses Presenting Russ Grimm's Hall of Fame Case

This will probably be the last Russ Grimm post for a bit, maybe until his old offensive line coach Joe Bugel presents him for enshrinement in Canton this summer. But I was curious to hear from the guy who was responsible for making Grimm’s case to the Hall of Fame committee. David Elfin was the longtime Redskins beat writer for the Washington Times until that paper stupidly folded its sports section; he’s now moved on to become the NFC East beat writer at AOL Fanhouse.

But back in February, he was in Miami covering the Super Bowl on a freelance assignment for NFLPA.com, and also to act as advocate for the Redskins’ candidates to the Hall of Fame during the voting. When I caught up with him by phone the Tuesday after the Saints won the championship, he was STILL in Miami, his return to the D.C. area blocked by canceled flights and the endless succession of snowstorms.

Elfin successfully made the case for Darrell Green and Art Monk two years back; it was (obviously) a long and difficult fight to get Monk enshrined, but at least there were available statistical milestones. My first question about this year’s vote was also the most basic: what on earth do you point to when trying to make a Hall of Fame presentation for an offensive lineman?

“Obviously it’s a lot harder for an offensive lineman,” he said. “I think football in general in harder. Baseball is such an easy sport [for determining these things]; if they had this process in baseball — and maybe this is one reason they don’t have it in baseball, because the stats speak for themselves for almost anybody.

“I mean, [baseball defensive standout] Ozzie Smith was probably a tough sell because he’s a defensive player, but most people have seen him play. If you’re trying to sell a defensive player from the ’30s, it’d probably be hard. Almost everything in baseball is quantifiable, and pretty much everything in basketball is quantifiable. Football’s a lot harder, because — forget offensive linemen for the minute; we’ll get back to them. Look at a defensive tackle? How do you measure Albert Haynesworth‘s worth if he’s not getting sacks.

“And cornerbacks: think back to the 1987 season: [Redskins cornerback] Barry Wilburn led the NFL in interceptions. Why? Because Darrell was on the other side. No one’s throwing to Darrell. I’m not knocking Barry Wilburn; he was a solid player. But he was not an elite player. So you look at career interception totals, and they can be pretty deceiving.

“Other than quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers and arguably kickers, nobody else really can be judged in football on stats. But offensive line is the most difficult one, because there are no stats whatsoever. So you look at team success, you look at running game results, you look at how good the offense was, and then you gotta talk to people.

“And people say Why Russ versus Jake [offensive tackle Joe Jacoby of the Hogs]? And the arguments are, one, that Russ made four straight Pro Bowls and the All-Decade Team. I think Jake made four straight Pro Bowls but not the All-Decade team.

“Jake played a higher-profile position, no doubt, but you talk to enough people and the majority — two-thirds to three-quarters — will say if it came down to it, they would take Russ over Jake. And that was good enough for me.

“And in our case, Russ has been in the room [for Hall of Fame discussion] something like seven years in a row; Jake has never made the room to my knowledge. So there’s some judgement by people that Russ was worth for being a Hall of Fame candidate and at the moment Jake is in the Hall of the Very Good. Because he makes the original 125 person ballot along with Ken Harvey and Charles Mann and Theismann and whoever else, but he’s never made it to the final 25, even, let alone the 15.”

Believe it or not, there’s plenty more — including Elfin’s strategy, and his predictions for other Hall of Fame-worthy Redskins — after the jump. Read more »