Pace, Greene get into HOF, not Warner this year

Orlando Pace’s Hall of Fame dreams started when he was young

Nick Wagoner

http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/26596/orlando-paces-hall-of-fame-dreams-started-young

EARTH CITY, Mo. — It’s a 109-mile southeastern trip across Ohio to get from Sandusky to Canton. But the journey from high school basketball player to enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame was much longer for former St. Louis Rams offensive tackle Orlando Pace.

Pace, 40, remembers his first visit to the Hall.

“I was in high school, we were playing a basketball game in Canton and part of our trip was to go visit the Hall of Fame and take a tour,” said Pace, a Sandusky native. “It was pretty cool just to see. I was obviously into football, but to see all those great players — as a kid it seems so far-fetched that you’d have an opportunity to possibly be there. But you play this game to be great, you want to be one of the greats of the game. That’s what I think all players, especially professional players strive to be there.”

Pace realized that goal on Saturday night when he was elected to the Hall of Fame.

Orlando Pace, the No. 1 overall pick in the 1997 draft, earned seven Pro Bowl trips during his NFL career.
This was Pace’s second year on the ballot after just missing the cut in 2015. He learned plenty from that first time through, acknowledging that he was nervous and made the mistake of reading and listening to everybody telling him he was a lock to be voted into the Hall.

By the time the Saturday voting process began last year, Pace was nervous and didn’t have any good diversions.

He vowed not to make that mistake again and made sure to fill up his itinerary with things to do in the San Francisco Bay Area this time around. Pace said earlier this week that he and his wife, Carla, planned to spend Saturday visiting nearby Napa, California.

“Last year, being that it was the first year, I didn’t know what to expect, and now I do,” Pace said earlier in the week. “You can handle it a little bit better the second time with the nerves.

“You’ve got to find something to do during the day to keep your mind off of it.”

Pace, the No. 1 overall pick in the 1997 draft, earned seven Pro Bowl trips, five All-Pro honors and landed a spot on the NFL’s 2000s All-Decade team. He helped the Rams win Super Bowl XXXIV and return to the big stage for Super Bowl XXXVI.

He blocked for two MVPs, protecting Kurt Warner’s blind side and opening holes for Marshall Faulk, as the Rams finished in the top 10 of total offense seven times and led the league in total yards, passing yards and points three straight seasons (1999-2001). Additionally, Pace was the left tackle for an offense that finished in the top five in passing yards for eight consecutive seasons.

But for all of those achievements, it’s this testimonial from former teammate Isaac Bruce that might best sum up why Pace is in Canton for more than just a visit.

“A guy like Orlando Pace, there’s no replacing him,” Bruce said. “How do you do what you do without him there? He was the one guy we didn’t want to lose to a knee injury or for two or three games. Oh no, that changes everything. So to me, he’s the guy. He’s the guy that you didn’t want to have to replace. Thank god we didn’t have to.”

It’s sentiment like that Pace values the most.

“That’s what you play for,” Pace said. “You can get your own stats or accolades, but when your peers respect you and peers say those types of things about you, that’s really why you play the game, to be respected by your peers. When they hold you in that high regard, that means a lot. It means a lot to me.”

And now the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton beckons a kid from Sandusky.

“Being from Ohio, having the chance to visit the Hall of Fame as a young player, you envision yourself being in that room or having your own bust. And for me, it’s always been a goal of mine to do that,” Pace said. “It’s just the chance to close out my career by meeting that last goal, that final goal I set out for.”

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Orlando Pace

Offensive tackle
6-7, 320
Ohio State
1997-2008, St. Louis Rams; 2009, Chicago Bears

• Selected by St. Louis first overall in 1997 draft; first offensive lineman selected first overall since 1968
• Started all 16 games seven times during his 13-season career
• Blocked for three straight NFL MVPs (QB Kurt Warner, 1999, 2001, and RB Marshall Faulk in 2000) for “Greatest Show on Turf”
• Five-time All-Pro
• Seven-time Pro Bowler 2000-06
• Pro Football Hall of Fame 2nd team All-2000s Team
• Member of Super Bowl XXXIV champions and of 1999, 2001 NFC champions

zn wrote:

Greatest Show on Turf Celebrate Orlando Pace

Members of the Rams Greatest Show on Turf era share their memories of Hall of Fame offensive tackle Orlando Pace.

zn wrote:

Dick Vermeil Talks Orlando Pace

Former Rams head coach Dick Vermeil talks about the contributions of offensive tackle Orlando Pace.

Those vids (linked in the previous post)…they’re good.

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My Presentation: Why Orlando Pace is a Hall of Famer

Bernie Miklasz

link: http://www.101sports.com/2016/02/10/my-presentation-why-orlando-pace-is-a-hall-of-famer/

Greetings. I wanted to share something with you in this piece. Some of you have asked: when you make a presentation that advocates a player’s candidacy for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, what do you say exactly? How do you make the case?
orlando pace-2
On Saturday, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee named Orlando Pace to the Class of 2016.
For those that have no interest in this, you can stop reading now. No problem. For those that are curious about what I put together to make a closing argument for Pace, I’ll take you inside the meeting room.
Last Saturday, the day before Super Bowl 50, the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee elected eight new members for induction into Canton. Two were senior committee nominees, Ken Stabler and Dick Stanfel. (I also serve on the senior committee that nominates candidates to be considered by the entire body of voters.) A third was Eddie DeBartolo, who was put forth by the contributors committee.
And then we had to discuss the 15 candidates on the modern-era ballots. In no particular order the 15 names were: Brett Favre, Pace, Kevin Greene, Joe Jacoby, Tony Dungy, Marvin Harrison, Kurt Warner, Terrell Davis, Steve Atwater, John Lynch, Don Coryell, Terrell Owens, Alan Faneca, Morten Andersen and Edgerrin James.
We spent 9 hours 20 minutes in a large room at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center, discussing and debating and voting on the 18 men.
Stabler, Stanfel and DeBartolo were voted on separately, independent of the modern-era ballot. The list of 15 modern-day candidates was reduced in two phases: in the first vote from 15 to 10, then a second vote to go from 10 to 5.
And then there was a final step; a straight “Yes” or “No” vote, individually, on the final five. To gain final clearance into Canton, each of the final five had to receive 80 percent of the votes. (I believe we had 46 selectors in Saturday’s meeting.) In my experience, cutting that list of names from 10 to 5 is absolutely excruciating.
I hate that moment. Just hate it. The five I leave off my ballot each year are virtual equals to the five that I check off. The idea of disappointing so many worthy players saddens me every year. I’m thrilled for the players that make it each year.
I’m proud of the work done by the committee. The approach and the work done by the committee has improved substantially since I first participated 17 years ago. It’s evolved. It’s more youthful, diverse, and open-minded. There are no cliques or voting blocs. There’s just a strong, shared desire for information and knowledge and a willingness to reach out and engage to get to the most informed place we possibly can before making these wrenching decisions.
Anyway …
As you undoubtedly know by now, Stabler, Stanfel and DeBartolo were voted in to join the five modern-day winners: Favre, Pace, Greene, Harrison and Dungy. I’ve been on the committee since 2000 and have presented multiple players for consideration including Jack Youngblood, Jackie Slater, Roger Wehrli, Aeneas Williams, Marshall Faulk, Pace, Greene and Warner. It’s a challenge. I look forward to doing it every year.
Finally, this is what I had to say about Orlando Pace to my fellow voters.
Here you go:
Good morning.
It’s good to see everybody again.
I think we’re familiar with the basics on Orlando Pace, but let’s do a quick review: seven Pro Bowls… actually 7 consecutive Pro Bowls from 1999 through 2005. A five-time All-Pro selection, first or second team. A second-team All-Decade selection for the aughts.
Pace compares solidly with Walter Jones and Jonathan Ogden, the last two offensive tackles that we voted into Canton, and I voted for them with great enthusiasm. In a little while I’ll put Pace’s career into context in the comparison to Jones and Ogden.
Now let’s talk about the Rams offense that had Pace as a fixture at left tackle…
Pace was 6-7 and 325 pounds. A strong athlete — but a graceful athlete, blessed with speed and quickness and great range … an opponent, Chuck Smith, once described playing Pace as trying to run around the side of the mountain — except that the mountain moves along with you.
I once watched a Redskins defensive back intercept pass in the end zone, run out with the ball, and get tackled 45, 50 yards down the field by Pace — the biggest player on the field.
That athleticism and ferocity served him well in an extremely demanding offense.
Between 1999 and 2005, Pace’s seven-year peak that represented the seven seasons of the Mike Martz offense in St. Louis, the Rams attempted the most passes, completed the most passes, threw for the most yards, were No. 1 in completion percentage, and were first in yards per passing attempt.
Over those same seven seasons the Rams were tied with Indianapolis for a league-best average of 27 points per game, and were ranked second in touchdown passes. They were tied with Philadelphia for the best record in the NFC between 1991 and 2005. And of course the Rams became the first team in NFL history to score more than 500 points in three consecutive seasons, 1999 through 2001. That team, with Pace anchoring left tackle, had the league’s best record at 37-11 over the three years, went 5-2 in the postseason, and won two NFC titles and a Super Bowl championship.
Kurt Warner wasn’t there for the entire seven-year run, and the Rams got more than 50 combined starts from guys like Marc Bulger, Jaime Martin, Trent Green and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk missed 36 of his final 62 games with the Rams because of knee injuries, so the Rams weren’t always functioning at full capacity between 1999 and 2005.
But except missing several games in 2002 — and by the way, the Rams’ scoring dropped dramatically that season, which is no coincidence — Orlando Pace was still there at left tackle, making those 7 straight Pro Bowls. The lead security guard for all of those Rams quarterbacks at a time when Martz had them flinging the ball more often, and at longer distances, and stemming from exotic formations — doing all of this more than any team in the league. By far.
When I look back on Pace’s career, I think it’s important to come up with a way to put his value in context to give it the special distinction it deserves. We watched those Martz-offense Rams score all of those points, and average close to 40 passing attempts per game, and push the ball downfield with a high-risk, high-reward passing attack.
And while Pace gave up his share of sacks, I did a quick comparison and saw that he only allowed a few more sacks than Jonathan Ogden or Walter Jones. But that really doesn’t do Pace justice, because he played LT in a more complex, more demanding, and riskiest system than any left tackle of his generation.
I knew he was under immense pressure in the Martz offense, which regularly featured empty backfields and no extra pass-protection help up front. The Martz offense was also a more vertical version of the Don Coryell offense, and the Rams’ favorite route was probably a deep “dig” that took time to complete. It wasn’t exactly a quick-hit route. Warner or Bulger would have to stand there and wait for Isaac Bruce or Torry Holt to clear and get open. This put even more of a burden on Pace, who was always all alone on the left side.
“I never remember having to put a tight end on Orlando’s side to give him help,” Martz told me. “I never put a running back over there to chip. We were a very aggressive offense, and we did some things that no one else was doing back then, and we had to have the perfect tackle to make it all go. If Orlando couldn’t keep Warner’s blind side clean, or if Orlando just had a lot of breakdowns, we wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of the stuff that puts over 500 points for three years in a row.
“It was ridiculous, what we asked Orlando to do. But you could just run any formation or routes that you wanted, knowing that he’d be over there. You could just X out his man, and everyone else on the offense, including the coaches, could do their job without concern.”
They all said the same thing when I asked … Warner, Faulk, Bruce — and prominent coaches including Bill Belichick, Dan Reeves, Andy Reid and Tony Dungy. Their opinion was unanimous: Pace kept that high-risk offense from cracking and was so good that Martz continued to add plays and schemes and hit opponents with even more creative and crazy (in a positive way) stuff.
I wanted to quantify this if I could.
And a couple of things jumped out at me in my research of the STATS LLC data base.
Consider:
— From 1999 through 2005, Pace’s seven-season peak, the Rams used sets that had four or five receivers on 33 percent of their passing attempts. Often it was an empty backfield, but sometimes Faulk would stay in to pick up inside blitzes, or he’d head out on a pass pattern. The Rams were higely successful in these four or five wideout sets, completing 65 percent of the passing attempts, netting the league’s highest average per passing attempt out of these formations.
— And how did this compare to the rest of the league between 1999 and 2005? The Rams used 4 or 5 wideout sets at a rate 71 percent higher than the league average. You heard that right: the Rams ran 4 or 5 wideout sets at rate that was 71 percent higher than the league average. And with Warner or Bulger exposed in those sets, Pace wasn’t getting help on the far left edge.
— To bring J. Odgen and Walter Jones into the equation, consider the number of 4 or 5 wideout sets used on passing attempts by the Ravens (Ogden), Seahawks (Jones) and Rams (Pace) over those seven seasons:
Ravens … 355 times.
Seahawks … 660 times.
Rams … 1,236 times.
Again, Pace never had help on his side of the field… Martz was completely confident in putting Orlando out there on the proverbial island… not much was going to get past him… and in some games the defense would just give up on beating Pace and switch its best pass rusher to the opposite side.
Obviously, Pace faced a higher degree of difficulty than any left tackle in the league … and he still dominated.
Here’s the other part to this:
— Between 1999 and 2005, the Rams led the league in passing attempts in which the ball traveled at least 21 yards in the air… and again, they were successful at it, striking for a lot of big plays and throwing for the most touchdowns on passes that travel 21+ yards.
This ties in with something I said earlier … by throwing the ball deeper downfield, Rams quarterbacks also had to hold onto the ball longer while waiting for receivers to clear. This just increased the burden on Pace.
I mean, think about it: All of those 4 or 5 wide out sets… all of the deeper routes… which meant Pace had to work just little longer and harder to keep his man away from the quarterback. Martz said most of the sacks that were charged to Pace were actually coverage sacks, with the QB holding onto the ball for too long.
Pace was also a ferocious run blocker. When the Rams needed the tough yards, they usually ran it to his side. According to STATS, Faulk averaged more than 5 yards per carry when he ran to the outside of the left guard — either behind Pace, who was plowing blockers straight on … or swinging wide of Pace if ‘Big O’ was muscling his man to the inside. Pace wasn’t content to take out one defender. He had the quickness and determination to get to the second or third level. It wasn’t unusual to see him wiping out defensive backs downfield. Those famous Orlando Pace pancake blocks were fun to watch.
Pace was put under more pressure than any left tackle of his generation — and played as well, perhaps even better, than the best of the best of his generation. A sure lockdown left tackle that gave his creative offensive-minded coach the supreme confidence to push the envelope in a way that no NFL team dared to do at that time. Pace was very much a giant … and a giant part of the foundation that formed one of the most prolific offenses of the modern game. I passionately believe that Pace belongs in Canton. Thank you for your consideration.

Kevin Greene’s Hall of Fame candidacy nearly got lost in the cracks

Mike Florio

Kevin Greene’s Hall of Fame candidacy nearly got lost in the cracks

Much has been said about one key omission from the new Hall of Fame class. Let’s take a moment to talk about one key inclusion.

Linebacker Kevin Greene finally has made it, passed over for more than a decade despite being third on the all-time sack list with 160. He has more sacks that Hall of Famers Chris Doleman, Michael Strahan, Richard Dent, John Randle, Lawrence Taylor, Rickey Jackson, Derrick Thomas, Charles Haley, Andre Tippett, Warren Sapp, and Howie Long.

Greene picked up those 160 sacks in 15 NFL seasons. But he got none as a rookie, which means that he averaged nearly 11.5 sacks every year for 14 seasons.

So how didn’t he make it sooner? Appearing on Friday’s PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio and NBCSN, Greene suggested that, because he spent the bulk of his career with the Los Angeles Rams, he may have gotten lost in the cracks.

Greene, one of the first players to change teams via true free agency, spent three seasons with the Steelers after eight in L.A. Then came a year in Carolina, a year with the 49ers, and two more with the Panthers. (Greene called his time in San Francisco a “fart in the wind,” which also accurately describes Jim Tomsula’s lone year as head coach — in multiple ways.)

Ultimately, it was PFT’s Darin Gantt (who holds the Carolina vote for the Hall of Fame) task to make the case for Greene, and this year Greene got in.

So as many wring hands (rightfully so) for the omission of Terrell Owens, it’s time for a deep exhale on Greene — and not simply because of an effort to avoid inhaling the odors of a fart in the wind.