Bruce keeps faith despite past voting snubs
Isaac Bruce doesn’t like the word “if.”
He’s a “when” man — as in, “when” he gets the call that he has been selected as part of the 2020 Pro Football Hall of Fame class, “when” he makes his speech in Canton, Ohio, and, arguably most important, “when” he makes it to the Broward County Sports Hall of Fame.
“Really put in bold letters: that Broward hasn’t put me in their hall of fame,” Bruce quipped.
To put it differently, the former St. Louis Rams receiver believes in timing. That notion — plus his reserved, self-confident personality — is part of the reason that makes this next point so startling.
Despite the numbers, personal accolades and the Super Bowl 34 victory, Bruce finds himself on the outside of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He’s not bitter. He’s not happy about it, either. He has instead put his faith in the process — even if this is his fourth time as a finalist.
“I really didn’t,” Bruce replied when asked if he thought it would take this long to get to Canton. “I thought and still think it’d be a smooth transition just like any other hall of fame I’d been inducted to.”
Exactly why he hasn’t received his gold jacket is a tough question. Hall of Fame voters are essentially told one thing: pick the best players based on their play. By that measure, Bruce should have been enshrined in Canton a long time ago. He’s one of five pass-catchers in NFL history with at least 1,000 receptions and 90 receiving touchdowns. His 15,208 receiving yards also ranks fifth all time.
“He’s definitely deserving,” said former teammate and fellow 2020 Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist Torry Holt. “If you look at his numbers, the numbers speak for itself.”
Bruce’s résumé screams Hall of Fame, but still the question remains: why isn’t he in?
“There are human beings in the process,” joked USA Today columnist Jarrett Bell who has been a Hall of Fame voter for 23 years. “... when you have human beings involved, you have biases, you have influences, you have imperfections.”
Although a player’s onthe-field performance is said to be the only thing that matters, precedent would suggest otherwise. Take Terrell Owens, for example. When Owens didn’t make it his first year, many believed his relationship with the media was the reason.
But Bruce was different. At a time when ego began to rule the receiver position, the Fort Lauderdale native remained selfless. It’s a trait that endeared him to teammates to this day.
“He showed me you can be really good and be really dominant but also have a chill button,” said Holt, who was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in 1999.
A man of faith, Bruce attributed his humility to his Christian upbringing.
“Knowing that the talent, the ability, the opportunities that I was experiencing was a gift and had nothing to do with anything that I could do was important to me,” Bruce said
So if it wasn’t his attitude, it had to be something else, right? Enter the “team quality” argument.
Bruce spent 14 season with the Rams and was a key figure in “The Greatest Show on Turf,” a nickname centered on the team’s high-octane, revolutionary offense. Their unprecedented production helped propel running back Marshall Faulk, quarterback Kurt Warner and offensive lineman Orlando Pace into the Hall of Fame.
“Those numbers are not easy to get when you got Torry Holt, Marshall Faulk on the same team,” Bell said of Bruce.
Still, Bell later added having such great teammates might have hurt Bruce’s chances in some voters’ minds. Former Dolphins receiver Mark Clayton found this laughable.
“That sound like the biggest crock of [expletive]
I’ve ever heard,” Clayton said. “What you did speaks for itself. Not them or whoever. How they think the Greatest Show on Turf would exist? They had great players. It was a great team, but it all comes down to pulling your own weight.”
Winning came first to anyone in that Rams locker room.
“We had a group of guys that were very unselfish, very happy for one another achieving success in the offense as individuals as well as what we were doing team wise,” Holt said.
For a second, forget all the proverbial obstacles that have kept Bruce from getting his gold jacket. Think about what it means to be a Hall of Famer. Or, better yet, consider this excerpt from the Hall of Fame’s creed: “We elevate the Game by LOVING [sic] those who helped build it.”
The significance of this statement lies in the fact that the Greatest Show on Turf helped usher in a new era of NFL offense which heavily focused on passing. Bruce sees threads of that vaunted Rams offense throughout the NFL, but most noticeably with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Patrick Mahomes “has a plethora of weapons, man, that he can distribute football to and all of those guys eat,” Bruce said.
“They’re fast, they’re formidable and [Chiefs coach] Andy [Reid] puts them in great positions to be successful.”
In a perfect world, 2020 would be the three-time Pro Bowler’s year. Super Bowl 54 is being played in his backyard. The Hall of Fame vote will be held there as well. Bruce, however, doesn’t want to get wrapped up in all of that.
“I was thinking that last year in Atlanta when my team was playing: ‘It’d be only right,’” Bruce said with a laugh.
Whether he’s honored in 2020 or not, one thing remains true: Bruce’s attitude won’t waver. He’ll continue doing what brings him joy — staying in shape, running his Fort Lauderdale gym, being a booster at his alma mater Dillard High — and won’t give up faith. He already knows what he’s going to wear (“slacks, maybe a white shirt and no hard shoes, some soft shoes”) and even narrowed down his list of presenters to three.
“My expectation hasn’t diminished at all,” Bruce continued. “In fact, it’s gone up.”
C. Isaiah Smalls II: 302-373-8866, @stclaudeii