It was rival 49ers tackle Bryant Young who the Rams were most concerned about before the 1999 season, when they signed Timmerman as a free agent. Krieg was a career overachiever who survived 19 seasons on modest talent with defense-driven teams. He has been named to eight Pro Bowl squads. According to Pro Football Reference, he was flagged for 14 accepted holding penalties in 187 career games, little more than one per season. Mason had seven seasons of at least 70 pass receptions, 1,000 yards and five touchdowns. He had 44 career sacks and as many as eight in a season on two occasions. It was the era of great defensive lines with catchy namesthe Rams had the Fearsome Foursome, the Cowboys the Doomsday Defense, the Steelers later added the Steel Curtain, and so forthand Marshall was the Ringo Starr of the Purple People Eaters, the guy who once ran the wrong way for a touchdown and was happy just to be in the band. Appreciate him for being that. Only missed 14 games in 10 seasons and 2 of them were meaningless rest games before the playoffs/ Last game of the season. He helped the Packers win a Super Bowl. It is a shame that he will never truly have his day in Canton, one that he deserved before he passed away. The system helped make Hall of Famers of Kelly, Reed and Thomas. Hull never lived to see himself make a Hall of Fame semifinalist list, as he died of liver failure at age 50 in 2011. The AFL was an eight- to 10-team league, so All-Pro selections were easier to come by. Cleveland sports will be the death of him. His .588 win percentage ranks second to Wilson in team history. Marshall cant get his name even on the preliminary Hall of Fame ballot. Allen has much in common with many others on this underrated list. He once threw three touchdowns in a shutout victory in a title game. Fletcher followed Gregg Williams from coaching stop to coaching stop, serving as the sometimes controversial, always effective defensive mastermind's field marshal. Do people not recognize Rob Gronkowski as a great tight end just because he has had Tom Brady as his quarterback? Tomlinson is fifth all-time in rushing yards, and he is third all-time in regular season touchdowns scored for all players and not just for running backs. In Jahri Evans' four All-Pro seasons (2009-12), the Saints ranked first, sixth, first and second in the NFL in total yards. Ellard was an Antonio Brown-level talent in his prime, but his teams were in no hurry to get him the ball. The admission probably slams the door of the Hall of Fame on Brown forever. His 42-yarder in the 1990 NFC championship game rates as one of the greatest clutch kicks in league history. Mike Kenn began his career playing left tackle for a lumbering 1970s power-running offense. He intercepted 25 career regular-season passes and two more in the postseason. Men such as Joe Montana, Lawrence Taylor. He then led three fourth-quarter comebacks to bring them back to the playoffs in 1965. Born: (2007, 2009, 2012), NFL Special Teams Player of the Year (2009), NFL 2000s All-Decade Team . Then again, the fourth-round draft pick had no choice. Now, underrated can mean a couple of things. He has already waited too long for that deserved honor. So it takes a remarkable streak of hard luck for a running back to make this list. A Colts defender delivered some payback in the all-star game. He rose to Pro Bowl status playing left tackle for a single-back, Joe Gibbs-style 1980s offense. Player A was a one-time Most Valuable Player who took part in four Pro Bowl games. The easiest way to be overlooked by history is to replace a legend just after a franchise has peaked. Super Bowl championships: 1974, 1975, 1978, 1979. He's rarely mentioned as an all-time great. Most Underappreciated RBs of the 2000s. The difference between the great and the all-time great is often a matter of timing and luck. If the soft-spoken scatback had been in the right place at the right time, he would have filled his one nagging void a Super Bowl title and the exposure that accompanied it. Rivers' excellence, longevity and ability to barely dodge immortality make him the John Hadl of his era. He had to blanket a wide receiver in man coverage with no safety help on every play. He returned eight interceptions for touchdowns, including four in 1993 and three during his age-35 season with the Raiders in 2000. Know who created those wide-open spaces? Not only was Fleming good enough to stick with great teams, but he also was the luckiest son of a gun on the face of the earth. Brown is now best known as a television personality. Sometimes it's because they played next to even bigger stars and sometimes it's Fewer yet realize that he made a crucial play in each victory. Players like McDole are what all-time underrated lists exist for. And none of them produce the numbers he generated in less hospitable systems. Mills looks like just another local hero linebacker in the encyclopedias, albeit a good one. Seth Joyner is one of those athletes who is widely respected by fans of the team that he played for but who is also not always mentioned as being an underrated player. Jerry Rice and John Taylor may have been the greatest receiving tandem of that era, but Ellard and Flipper Anderson were the most explosive pair of deep threats. Randy Gradishar. Fleming was a reliable backup tight end/wide receiver who played with four Super Bowl-winners (and one NFL champion) in a dozen seasons. Perhaps it's time we look back on how much of an impact he and his Jaguars had on the NFL two decades ago. He led the Bengals to a pair of playoff appearances in 1973 and 1975, Joe Montana's high school senior and Notre Dame sophomore seasons. Get this: Ten of those seasons were spent with either the Vince Lombardi Packers or Don Shula Dolphins. His career was cut short by injuries suffered in the first of those three Pro Bowls. Teams: Tennessee Titans, Baltimore Ravens, New York Jets, Houston Texans. Steve Wisniewski played guard on a Raiders team that moved in the middle of his career and was just good enough to remind you it was not in the same class as the great Raiders teams that preceded it. WebMost Underrated NFL Players of All Time These men did so much but received so little credit in return. Butler was the NFL's most dangerous all-purpose safety for much of the 1990s. Guys who played in Jacksonville repeatedly have been crapped on in Pro Bowl and Hall of Fame votes, none more so than Taylor during and after his 11 seasons there. in the mid-1960s to early '70s, chances are "Whichever one has Marv Fleming" would have been a correct answer. Reidel Anthony, Florida. But check out these popular stories. But a double whammyplaying center and playing for the Broncoshas kept him miles from Hall of Fame consideration. The Adventures of Grim Reaper J is a Reminder to Do What You Love style | Charlie Kolbrener Johnnie Walker Collaborates With VANDYTHEPINK and 88Rising to Release Special Blue Label Bottle nft | ONE37pm Editors When the Rams finally earned a Super Bowl berth, Robertson was in Buffalo, playing for another playoff also-ran. No modern coach suppressed passing offenses quite like Fisher, and no team produces offensive stats that look like they come from the early 1930s quite like the Ravens. But the diminutive Brees would not have been able to lead the Saints to a Super Bowl and several seasons as top contenders without a clean pocket, particularly right in front of him. Dunn left Tampa Bay as a free agent after the 2001 season and headed to Atlanta, largely because of his relationship with Arthur Blank, the Falcons owner. Those who have knowledge of National Football League history are well aware of the more famous individuals who made their names and fame playing pro football. During that time, he led the league in passer rating four times and passing yards twice. One of the greatest defenders of his era reduced to stuntman status in Campbell's action movieall it takes is a moment to make a player underrated forever. Maybe Rivers takes his place among the all-time greats. Bottom line: For 16 seasons, Henry Ellard wreaked havoc as a pass receiver and punt returner. Young played for some great 49ers teams, including a Super Bowl-winning squad as a rookie in 1994. The most similar current player to Anderson is Pittsburgh's Le'Veon Bell, but Bell plays in a modern offense that amplifies his production instead of suppressing it. That feeling never really went away.". Greenwood, but there are dozens of other great old players clamoring for their chance who didn't enjoy the glory of playing for a "team of the decade.". Mills was a USFL All-Star in all three seasons of the league's existence, and he led the Philadelphia and Baltimore Stars' Doghouse Defense (coached by Jim Mora) to a pair of league titles. So Kenn basically had three careers. He took over as the Bears' featured offensive weapon after the Super Bowl Shuffle years. But Wright never posted massive interception totals, and his teams ended up on the receiving end of a pair of Super Bowl beatings. He's also among the top 100 in games started (83rd), interception return yardage (89th) and interception return touchdowns (31st). The lack of respect that Larry Fitzgerald has received from supposed football experts throughout his career boggles the mind. "Even now I still get pissed off. There may be such a thing as too much blitzing, after all. You mean future Hall of Fame tackle Orlando Pace didnt block four guys all by himself? Numbers better than majority of RBs in history. 11) And they really deserve more love. But McCree did fumble. With Warfield hurt nearly all of that season, Ryan helped make a Pro Bowler out of receiver/punter Gary Collins. Poor Louis Wright has a hard time even making the Broncos' overcrowded All-Snub Team. Bottom line: Few remember Glen Edwards as the fearless strong safety with the Steelers first two Super Bowl teams. Robinson was one of those players. In an era when 50 percent completion rates and 20-interception seasons were common for Pro Bowl quarterbacks, Anderson's 64.9 percent completion rate and quarterback ratings above 90 look like temporal anomalies. McDole's Bills defenses held opponents to fewer than 3.1 yards per carry across three consecutive seasons. Randall Cunningham is one of the most polarizing individuals regarding these types of discussions. The statue portrays jubilant Packers fans in tundra-weather gear appearing to cradle a player who just pounced into the stands. Both players were Pro Bowlers the previous year. Theyre the flat-liners whose drop-dead consistency gets lost with average-to-bad teams, in smaller markets, with brain-challenged organizations that have little, if any, history of success. Hence, the Campbell video. After missing most of two years with injury, he returned in 1972 and led the NFL in TDs, yards, yards per attempt, and was an all-pro. His 65 interceptions are fifth most in NFL history. Even so, Smith was pretty much a well-kept secret outside Pittsburgh despite meeting or approaching Pro Bowl standards for almost a decade. He then went on to start at left tackle for the playoff-bound Cardinals and 2000 NFC champion Giants. Debates about the greatest pass-rushers in the history of the NFL will conjure up mentions of players such as Bruce Smith, Michael Strahan, Reggie White and others. Two 10-interception seasons, with 57 career interceptions. In an ideal world, every NFL playoff game is won or lost strictly by the players. An all-underrated team like this one can get flooded with Zach Thomas, Hardy Nickerson, Tommy Nobis and Tedy Bruschi types if we don't get a little choosy. Ryan made three Pro Bowls, but All-Pro status was blocked by a couple of guys named Johnny Unitas and Bart Starr. Mason was frequently his team's most valuable offensive player, but he and Steve McNair made their short pitch-and-catch passes look a little too easy. Pro Bowl? Bottom line: The 49ers of the 1980s are remembered most for Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, coach Bill Walsh and the West Coast offense.
most underrated nfl players 2000s