No, Julian Edelman still isn't a Hall of Famer — just like Eli Manning isn't
Julian Edelman won Super Bowl MVP on Sunday.
It was a well-deserved career highlight on a day where he was the best player on the field. His 10 catches for 141 yards marked a beacon of offense in a game where yards and points were at a premium, the lowest-scoring game in Super Bowl history.
This does not make him a Pro Football Hall of Famer.
The fact that Sunday marked his third Super Bowl win and capped another outstanding playoff run for Edelman also does not a Hall of Famer make.
Edelman is a fine football player
Edelman is a career role player, a trusted weapon for the game’s greatest quarterback who has shone his brightest on the biggest stage.
But at no point in his career has Edelman ever been considered by any reasonable mind one of the best players at his position for a single season.
Yet otherwise reasonable, educated minds are making the case for Edelman as one of the best of all time, citing Sunday’s performance to bolster his case.
As the MVP of this year’s Super Bowl, Patriots’ WR Julian Edelman is playing himself into a spot in Canton in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 4, 2019
They’re citing his gaudy playoff and Super Bowl statistics to bolster their argument.
Is Julian Edelman a Hall of Famer? Keep this in mind too: Jerry Rice is the only player in NFL playoff history with more catches… pic.twitter.com/B1znbp8i93
— Jordan Schultz (@Schultz_Report) February 4, 2019
He should be lauded and celebrated for what he’s accomplished. He’s been a key player on multiple championship teams.
Please, stop
Edelman is a good player in a great system. That this conversation is even taking place is another testament to what the Patriots have accomplished in the Brady-Belichick era.
Yahoo’s Charles Robinson laid out Edelman’s case last week, and the statistics are damning for any talk of a Hall of Fame case.
The numbers don’t add up
Edelman has zero Pro Bowl nods.
Edelman has a grand total of two 1,000-yard seasons in 10 years in the league.
Edelman’s career totals tally up to 499 catches for 5,930 yards and 30 touchdowns. That adds up to the 148th most catches, 248th most receiving yards and a touchdown tally that doesn’t even register on the all-time lists.
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Guys named Frank Clarke and Bob Tucker have more receiving yards than Edelman.
Much better players aren’t in the Hall
By comparison, St. Louis Rams great Issac Bruce tallied 1,024 catches, 15,208 yards and 109 touchdowns in his career. Those are numbers Edelman will never approach.
He also won a Super Bowl.
Bruce retired in 2009. He’s still waiting for his Hall call.
This should be the end of the argument.
About that PED suspension
And then there’s the performance-enhancing drug suspension Edelman served to start the season. The Pro Football Hall of fame doesn’t treat enshrinement the same reference baseball’s Hall does in terms of drug cheats.
A sniff of chemically enhancing one’s performance isn’t the automatic disqualifier in Canton as it is in Cooperstown. But for a guy who already doesn’t have a serious case for the Hall, the drug suspension doesn’t help.
The Eli Manning treatment
But some are starting to treat Edelman like they do Eli Manning, another good-but-not-great NFL player whose outsized playoff performances are cited as markers of a Hall of Famer.
Manning was the quarterback of a pair of New York Giants Super Bowl teams that relied primarily on their pass rush in unlikely championship runs.
Outside of those two Super Bowl runs, Manning has never won another playoff game. He’s only made the playoffs in four other seasons in a 15-year career.
And like Edelman, Manning’s career numbers don’t add up to the Hall of Fame even if they make a slightly better case.
The call is strong from some
Yet there’s a staunch corner of NFL fandom and punditry that wants Manning in the Hall.
But there are rewards already in place to reward the kind of playoff performance. They’re called Super Bowl rings.
Like Manning, Edelman should be appreciated for his accomplishments. But it’s an insult to the Jerry Rices, Randy Mosses and Terrell Owenses of the football world — true receiving greats who produced year after year and consistently wreaked havoc on opposing defensive backs who would stand up for their Hall of Fame bonafides.
They are what Hall of Famers look like.
Let’s celebrate Edelman for what he is and not insist he’s something he’s not.
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