1. Linebacker Zach Thomas
1996-2007 Miami Dolphins, 2008 Dallas Cowboys
This one continues to mystify. It’s Thomas’ first year as a finalist, and it’s impossible to argue that he wasn’t one of the best players at his position in his era. Among inside linebackers of his era, the only one who ranks higher in Approximate Value is Ray Lewis. Brian Urlacher, who ranks lower than Thomas in AV, also had one fewer Pro Bowl nods than Thomas’ seven, and one fewer First-Team All Pro nods than Thomas’ five. Urlacher made the Hall of Fame in the 2018 class.
This is not at all to argue Urlacher’s viability as a Hall of Famer — nobody who watched football in the early 2000s would argue it. But Thomas was at least as valuable. In his career, he had 1,734 total tackles, 20.5 sacks, 17 interceptions, 48 passes defensed, and 16 forced fumbles. Thomas could do it all at the highest level, and when we’re rewarding excellence in this particular forum, isn’t that what it’s all about?
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”