Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
DBs corner Hall during inductions
CANTON, Ohio — What a defensive backfield in gold jackets: Ed Reed, Ty Law and Champ Bailey.
Law and Reed entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday night, and Bailey was set to join them a bit later in the evening.
“Fitting to be in here with Mr. Johnny Robinson and Champ and Ty,” Reed said. “My DBs know it was always about us.”
Reed and Law’s voices frequently broke during their speeches.
Law spoke of his family’s support, and his hometown of Aliquippa, Pa., which also produced his uncle, Tony Dorsett, and Mike Ditka — both Hall of Famers.
“I know there ain’t no crying in football,” Law joked.
“We are a community built on love, strength, struggle and that Quiptown pride,” he said. “We did it, Aliquippa. We are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.”
Law became the first
inductee from New England’s standout defense that won three Super Bowls in the early 2000s. One of the most versatile and physical cornerbacks the NFL has seen, Law was selected for five Pro Bowl teams and was a two-time All-Pro. He finished with 53 career interceptions, twice leading the NFL in that category, had more than 800 tackles, 169 passes defensed, five sacks, and scored seven times.
Reed was just as big a playmaker for Baltimore, a safety who fellow enshrinee Ray Lewis called “a gift” to the Ravens and himself. He was elected in his first year of eligibility, just as Lewis was last year, and called for unity in America, setting a standard like a team’s — each pushing one another toward an achievement.
“Help each other, encourage each other, lift each other up,” Reed said. “Encourage those around you. Encourage yourself.”
Reed, a five-time AllPro safety and member of the NFL 2000s All-Decade Team, was the 2004 Defensive Player of the Year and made nine Pro Bowls. He had 64 career interceptions, seventh overall; led the NFL in picks three times; and his 1,590 yards on interception returns is a league mark. His 13 non-offense TDs rank fifth all time.
In 2013, in his hometown of New Orleans, the Ravens won the Super Bowl.
Also inducted were Kevin Mawae, Pat Bowlen, Johnny Robinson, Tony Gonzalez and Gil Brandt.
Mawae was an outstanding center for three NFL teams, and a key union force during the 2011 lockout of players. His leadership, along with his talent and determination, made him a three-time All-Pro and eight-time Pro Bowler with the Seahawks, Jets and Titans.
Bowlen’s Denver Broncos made more Super Bowls (seven, winning three) than they had losing seasons. Under Bowlen’s leadership, Denver went 354-240-1 from 1984 through last season. He was the first owner in NFL history to oversee a team that won 300 games — including playoffs — in a span of three decades.
Brandt has been in the NFL so long he scouted Robinson. Brandt was procuring talent for the Dallas Cowboys in their initial season of 1960 when Robinson came out of LSU as a running back and eventually became a star safety.
Finally, in 2019, they are wearing gold jackets.
“After all this time, I thought I had been forgotten,” Robinson said. “To receive that knock on the door … was surreal to me.”
Brandt paid tribute to his true calling: talent evaluation.
“What you do in securing talent is the lifeblood of football,” he said. “Seeing that player that was something special … or going to a D-3 campus and finding a diamond in the rough. I want all of you to look at my election into the Hall of Fame as a tip of the cap to you.”
Brandt, who was enshrined as a contributor, developed the Dallas scouting system that emphasized computers far before most other teams; scouted the historically black colleges and small colleges for talent; made signing undrafted free agents a science; and worked with Hall of Famers Tex Schramm, the team president, and coach Tom Landry to build a dynasty.
Robinson’s induction makes for a half-dozen members of the great Kansas City Chiefs’ defense of the 1960s who have been enshrined. Robinson joins Willie Lanier, Bobby Bell, Buck Buchanan, Emmitt Thomas and Curley Culp.