The Professional Football Corridor of Fame is remarkably exclusive, and a lot of famous players obtain them selves trapped behind a bottleneck in the voting system. Some of them seem to get passed over 12 months after year.
Just one of those people players is former Broncos wide receiver Rod Smith, who enjoyed a extensive and effective profession but has however to get the phone to the Corridor. Smith thinks his entire body of perform is deserving of induction.
“I truly feel I’m deserving, but I really do not get to vote,” Smith claimed, via Chris Tomasson of the Denver Gazette.
In his profession, Smith recorded eight seasons with more than 1,000 receiving yards, and he performed a important position on two Super Bowl winners. He led the league with 113 receptions in 2001, and he was named to 3 Pro Bowls and earned two very first-workforce All-Professional options.
Smith also compiled 11,389 occupation getting yards, which ranks 34th in NFL historical past. That determine is bigger than the vocation totals of Hall of Fame wideouts these kinds of as Lance Alworth, Raymond Berry, Harold Carmichael and Fred Biletnikoff, but those people receivers played right before 1990.
Smith’s very best Corridor of Fame argument may be people two Super Bowl titles, as he led Denver in obtaining yards nine instances, which includes in the course of their championship seasons in 1997 and ’98.
“We had a 1,000-lawn rusher each individual calendar year I was there (except for one particular),” Smith stated. “You’ve bought to appear at my entire entire body of do the job. In the course of my era, we received a lot more video games than just about any person. At the conclusion of the working day, what I cared about more than just about anything was successful, and they just can’t consider the Tremendous Bowls absent from me.”
Those people Broncos offenses have various gamers at this time in the Corridor of Fame which include John Elway, Terrell Davis and Shannon Sharpe, but none of the team’s large receivers has been inducted.
Smith is a member of the Broncos Ring of Fame, as the staff gave him the honor in 2012, but he is continue to hoping to be immortalized in Canton.