Jeff Legwold | ESPN.comReading: 4 min.
With a rare defensive bent, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2023 features two of the greatest cornerbacks in NFL history, one of the all-time sack leaders and a linebacker who frustrated some. One of the best quarterbacks the game has ever seen, on pace to have multiple seasons with at least 100 tackles.
Cornerbacks Ronde Barber and Darrelle Revis, outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware and linebacker Zach Thomas were selected as part of the Class of 2023, as was tackle Joe Thomas, a 10-time Pro Bowl selection with the Cleveland Browns.
It is the first time since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 that four of the five places in the modern day class are defensive players. In 2021, three of the picks were also defensive backs (LeRoy Butler, Richard Seymour and Bryant Young) and the fourth defensive back in that class, Sam Mills, had been a finalist on the veterans committee.
Also chosen in the Class of 2023 were coach Don Coryell, defensive tackle and end Joe Klecko, linebacker Chuck Howley and cornerback Ken Riley. The latter three were finalists for the veterans committee, while Coryell was a finalist for the coaches and contributors committee.
The nine new members of the Hall of Fame will be formally introduced in early August in Canton, Ohio.
The campus, which included just over 64 percent offensive immortals prior to the Class of 2023, has been a tricky destination at times for defensemen, especially those who didn’t play with teams that won the Super Bowl or any championship before the Super Bowl era.
Joe Thomas is the most awarded player among this year’s picks despite playing for Browns teams that finished just once, in his rookie year, with a winning record in his 11 NFL seasons and never played in the postseason. . His 10 trips to the Pro Bowl are the eighth-most for an offensive lineman.
Both Joe Thomas and Darrelle Revis, who retired after the 2017 season, were selected in their first year of eligibility. Revis, who coined the phrase “Revis Island” out of his will to face the best receivers in his career, was a seven-time Pro Bowl selection as well as a four-time All-Pro starting team selection.
Revis played eight of his seasons in two stages with the New York Jets and was part of the Super Bowl XLIX champion New England Patriots.
Barber was one of the most productive and durable players in the league during his career. He didn’t miss a game in his last 15 years in the NFL and was a five-time Pro Bowl selection with 47 interceptions and five seasons with at least 90 tackles.
Zach Thomas was named to the All-Pro starting team five times with 10 seasons with at least 100 tackles and throughout his career was recognized by opposing quarterbacks, including Peyton Manning, as one of the toughest players to fool out of. assumption.
Ware is ninth on the all-time sacks list (138.5), led that category twice in his career and won a Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos to close out the 2015 season.
Howley, a five-time first-team All-Star, remains the only player from the losing team to be named Super Bowl MVP after picking up two interceptions in the Dallas Cowboys’ victory in Edition V.
Klecko was selected to the Pro Bowl at three different positions and is credited with leading the NFL in sacks with 20.5 in 1981, the year before the stat was made official.
Riley, who passed away in 2020, had one of the most productive and underrated careers of the bunch. He’s tied for fifth in interceptions (only Hall of Famer Dick “Night” Lane had more as a player than he spent his entire career as a cornerback) and yet he didn’t make a Pro Bowl selection.
Coryell, who died in 2010, is regarded as a central figure in the development of the modern passing game with a long list of innovations that included concepts in receivers’ pass routes or numbering systems in his plays that are still used today. NFL and using tight ends to impact in more ways than just catching balls.
The so-called “Air Coryell” offenses led the NFL in passing yards in seven of his eight seasons in charge of the then-San Diego Chargers.
