The Pro Football Hall of Fame will induct nine new members on Saturday including former New England Patriots’ Super Bowl champ Darrelle Revis.
The event begins at noon on ESPN and NFL Network. with Chris Berman serving as the master of ceremonies.
The speech order according to ProFootballHOF.com:
- ZACH THOMAS
- KEN RILEY
- DeMARCUS WARE
- JOE KLECKO
- CHUCK HOWLEY
- DARRELLE REVIS
- DON CORYELL
- RONDÉ BARBER
- JOE THOMAS
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Below are highlights of each inductee from the Associated Press:
Darrelle Revis
The nights before games were always the toughest times for Darrelle Revis.
One of the NFL’s most dominant cornerbacks would lie in bed thinking about what he needed to accomplish the next day on the field. Revis would go over the game plan, the notes from his film studies, the receivers’ routes and their tendencies.
Over and over until he’d fall asleep.
He’d wake up mentally prepared — and that brief anxiety would be replaced by supreme confidence.
“Restless nights, I’d say to start with,” Revis said. “Covering some of the greatest wide receivers in the game and future Hall of Famers at that time, I was probably the most nervous out of anybody on the field if I had that assignment.
“For me, it’s kind of looking at yourself in the mirror and saying to yourself, ‘It’s either me or him. I just have to stand up to the challenge.’ For me, I just took on the responsibility to take that assignment and try to shut him down.”
Revis did exactly that for most of his brilliant 11-year NFL career, including eight seasons over two stints with the New York Jets.
So much so, he earned the popular “Revis Island” nickname, a fitting tribute to how he’d single-handedly make many receivers disappear — lost on an island — from opponents’ game plans.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime type corner,” former Jets coach Rex Ryan once said. “And that’s a fact.”
Tough to argue, and voters for the Pro Football Hall of Fame made Revis a first-ballot inductee following a career during which he routinely locked down one side of the field with his air-tight coverage.
Joe Thomas
CLEVELAND (AP) — Due to space limitations, Joe Thomas was given only 300 tickets to disperse among dozens of family members, former teammates, friends and other guests to attend his upcoming Pro Football Hall of Fame induction.
Not everyone made the cut.
“I invited all my Browns head coaches and quarterbacks, then ran out,” he cracked.
At least Thomas can joke these days while reflecting on a stellar NFL career that included so many miserable, losing seasons in Cleveland — he played for six coaches and blocked for 20 different starting QBs — while at times pushing himself through debilitating pain just to stay on the field.
For 11 years, Thomas was a pillar of excellence for a franchise that has spent most of the past two-plus decades in disarray. An iron man, he played 10,363 consecutive snaps, a streak believed to be a league record, before being forced off the field with a torn triceps midway through Cleveland’s 0-16 season in 2017.
He was a technician on the field, his performance shaped by an endless quest for perfection. Outside the lines, Thomas was the consummate teammate. Thomas played on just one winning team — the Browns went 48-128 with him — and he never made the playoffs, the only blemish on an otherwise flawless resume.
It’s not even arguable: Thomas is the best thing about the Browns since their 1999 expansion rebirth.
Elected for enshrinement in his first year of eligibility, Thomas will be introduced by his wife, Annie, and their four children, before he’s the fitting closing speaker on Saturday in Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium, which will be overrun by Browns fans.
Zach Thomas
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — The sun was already out the morning of Zach Thomas’ first NFL training camp 27 years ago.
It was 8:45 a.m. — back when the Miami Dolphins held two practices a day. A gentle breeze wafted the smell of wet grass through the air.
Thomas, a fifth-round draft pick from a small town in northwest Texas, took in his surroundings. The Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino stood just across from him, but Thomas didn’t bask in admiration for long.
“I was so focused, laser-focused just to make the team,” he said.
Thomas knew then that he didn’t look the part of a typical NFL linebacker. At 5-foot-11 and 228 pounds, Thomas was undersized and overlooked. He was barely scouted out of high school and originally recruited out of Texas Tech to play special teams for the Dolphins.
Miami selected him with the 154th pick in the 1996 NFL draft — the 19th linebacker taken in a class that also includes Ray Lewis. Thomas spent the rest of his 13-season NFL career running through blocks, and doubt, en route to seven Pro Bowls, five All-Pro selections and the fifth-most tackles in NFL history.
He made the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his 10th year of eligibility, and fourth straight as a finalist.
“Zach was tough, nasty and relentless,” said his former teammate Larry Izzo, a linebacker who played for Miami from 1996-2000. “He was a three-down linebacker who never left the field. He just made plays. Zach was a guy who always played with a huge chip on his shoulder, and that drove him to greatness. His play inspired his teammates, and Zach set the tone every time he stepped on the field.”
Ronde Barber
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Ronde Barber never doubted he’d wind up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The undersized cornerback’s journey included some of the most memorable plays in Tampa Bay Buccaneers history, as well as several trips to Canton in which he resisted the temptation to step foot in the building where he’ll be enshrined as part of a class of nine 2023 inductees.
Barber, 48, played much of his career in the shadow of twin brother Tiki, who garnered far more attention as a star running back for the New York Giants.
That is until Ronde turned himself into a household name with a 92-yard interception return for a touchdown that sealed the 2002 NFC championship game and propelled the once hapless Bucs to their first Super Bowl appearance.
“It took a long time to get where I am, but I truly believed I was going to get there,” Barber said, looking back on a 16-year career in which he set an NFL mark for consecutive starts by a defensive back and never missed a game because of injury.
“I’ve been (to Canton) five times. I’ve never gone through the Hall,” he added. “I was purposely waiting until I had my opportunity to go in.”
Barber becomes the fourth member from a defense that dominated the league in the late 1990s and early 2000s to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, joining Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks and John Lynch. He struggled early, only to persevere and become every bit as important to Tampa Bay’s success as the others.
Don Coryell
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Nearly two weeks after Don Coryell died in 2010 at age 85, an impressive lineup of Hall of Famers gathered to remember the innovative coach whose “Air Coryell” offense produced some of the most dynamic passing attacks in NFL history.
John Madden, Dan Fouts and Joe Gibbs sat in the front row. Kellen Winslow and Charlie Joiner were also there.
They had either played for or coached under Coryell, and while remembering the coach’s genius and genuineness, the overwhelming sentiments were sadness and bewilderment that Coryell had yet to join them in Canton, Ohio.
It was enough to make Madden choke up as he began his eulogy.
“You know, I’m sitting down there in front, and next to me is Joe Gibbs, and next to him is Dan Fouts, and the three of us are in the Hall of Fame because of Don Coryell,” Madden said, his voice cracking. “There’s something missing.”
What many people have long considered a snub will be rectified Saturday when Coryell is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Coryell went 111-83-1 combined in five seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals and nine seasons in San Diego. The Chargers made it to the AFC championship game in consecutive seasons but lost both times, to the rival Oakland Raiders after the 1980 season and then to the Cincinnati Bengals in the infamous “Ice Bowl” the following season.
But his influence on the game remains unmistakable.
During the Air Coryell years, Fouts and the Chargers — who wore lightning bolts on their helmets, jerseys and pants — set records and led the NFL in passing almost every season while revolutionizing the game and thrilling fans. At the height of Air Coryell, Fouts led the NFL in yards passing for four straight seasons and touchdown passes in consecutive seasons. Coryell would split Winslow, the tight end, and running backs out wide. Coryell’s schemes stretched the field and used motion, forcing defenses to play catch-up.
Joe Klecko
Joe Klecko was tangled up with an offensive lineman during a New York Jets game when fists, elbows and cusses started flying.
The scrum came to an abrupt end when Marty Lyons, Klecko’s concerned teammate, ran up behind the big defensive lineman, put him in a bear hug and pulled him from the fracas.
It was the last time Lyons ever did that.
“He grabbed me and he said, ‘You ever do that again, I’ll kick your (butt) right here in front of everybody,’” Lyons said, chuckling at the memory from more than 40 years ago. “He says, ‘You either fight with me or you leave me alone.’ And right then and there, I knew I had a guy in the foxhole with me.
“If I ever got into a fight, No. 73 would come in there and he’d take those big hands and fingers and he’d just throw people.”
Toughness, unmatched versatility, brute strength and unwavering loyalty were the hallmarks of a 12-year Hall of Fame career for Klecko, who was the heart of the Jets’ “New York Sack Exchange” in the 1980s while teaming with Lyons, Mark Gastineau and Abdul Salaam on a dominant D-line.
Klecko was a favorite among fans — many of whom still wear his jersey at games — and his teammates for his big plays, vicious sacks and constant support for his guys. He was the first, and still the only, player in NFL history to be selected to the Pro Bowl at three positions on the defensive line: end, tackle and nose tackle.
Klecko’s induction into pro football’s shrine in Canton, Ohio, on Saturday comes 35 years after he played his last NFL snap. He made it in as a senior candidate; Lyons and many others Klecko played with and against deemed the honor long overdue.
Chuck Howley
DALLAS (AP) — Chuck Howley brought home a cowboy blue Dodge Charger after being named MVP of Super Bowl 5 — still the only losing player to earn the honor all these years later.
The son of the former Dallas Cowboys linebacker was sure his dad would give him that car when he was old enough to drive, which would have put him on a short list of coolest teenagers in Dallas.
“I guess my mom got a hold of him, and the next day in its place was parked a wood panel-sided station wagon, and I was just crushed,” Scott Howley said. “And I asked him, ‘What’d you do?’”
The younger Howley enjoys telling that story with his 87-year-old father headed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday, something more significant to go with his quirky Super Bowl claim to fame.
The answer for a devastated son about the disappearing Charger was simple, of course.
NFL contracts then weren’t what they are today, and Howley was the father of two. Cars needed a practical use, even for a football star who had just intercepted two passes and forced a fumble in a 16-13 Super Bowl loss to Baltimore.
The first of Howley’s two standout Super Bowls capped the last of his five consecutive All-Pro seasons, and he was a six-time Pro Bowler. He made the Hall of Fame in the senior category, for players who have been retired at least 25 years.
DeMarcus Ware
DALLAS (AP) — DeMarcus Ware won a Super Bowl as a Denver Bronco after setting a storied franchise’s sacks record with the Dallas Cowboys.
There’s little question the outside linebacker’s Pro Football Hall of Fame celebration will be part Denver, part Dallas.
Ware, the 11th overall pick out of Troy before Spears went 20th, was a salary cap casualty with the Cowboys in 2013 after compiling 117 sacks in nine seasons, three more than Hall of Famer Randy White’s previous club record.
With questions about age (32 at the time) and injuries, Ware joined Peyton Manning and the Broncos. Two years later, Ware sacked Cam Newton twice in Denver’s 24-10 victory in Super Bowl 50 when the Manning-led offense mostly just tried to stay out of the way of a dominant defense.
Ken Riley
When Ken Riley entered the NFL as a sixth-round pick by Cincinnati in 1969 after a successful college career as a dual-threat quarterback at Florida A&M, he was greeted with a harsh reality.
In an era when the model QB was a tall, drop-back passer, mobile QBs such as Riley from historically Black colleges typically got moved to other positions. So Riley was immediately told by Hall of Fame coach Paul Brown that his NFL career would be at cornerback not quarterback.
“That’s not an easy thing to accept,” said former Bengals teammate Dave Lapham. “I know he felt like he could have played quarterback in the National Football League. But he accepted the move to the corner and more than accepted it, he excelled at it.”
Riley excelled at the position switch so much with 65 career interceptions — tied for the fifth-most ever — and five returned for touchdowns that he will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday, just more than three years after his death.
Riley took to the position switch right away with four interceptions as a rookie and never really slowed down until he retired after intercepting eight passes and earning first-team All-Pro honors at age 36 following the 1983 season.
“He worked hard just to master his craft, worked hard to accomplish what he was able to accomplish,” former Bengals receiver Isaac Curtis said. “To come in as a quarterback and be able to play 15 years in the NFL at cornerback, having never been a cornerback before, it just shows you the kind of work ethic and kind of athlete that he was. He prepared and played the game at a high level. You almost didn’t really realize it because he’s so low key and quiet. But at the end of the day, you look at what he accomplished was amazing.”
Riley used his background as a quarterback to excel at shutting down the opponent’s passing game. A copious note taker and studier of film, Riley kept detailed books with his own scouting reports on receivers around the league.
He combined that preparation and knowledge with great athleticism to shine at the position. His seven seasons with at least five interceptions are tied for the most in the Super Bowl era.
