Thursday, July 27, 2000

Buchsbaum analyzes the Hall of Fame Class of 2000

By Joel Buchsbaum, Contributing editor

ProFootballWeekly.com contributing editor Joel Buchsbaum gives his thoughts on each of these men.

On Howie Long: "Howie was a great player, a great competitor and one of the few defensive linemen that goes into the Hall that was a total player at end. Most of your defensive ends are basically pass rushers. Howie played the run. He played the pass. He could move inside. He could play anywhere on the defensive front. He was an extremely, total, complete player. The funny thing was, when he was at Villanova in college, some people thought he was a little bit of an underachiever. But then he really caught my eye in the bowl game he played, I think it was the Blue-Gray game. He looked dominant in that. He played very hard in that. And actually in my own mind I thought he was the best defensive lineman I saw that year."

On Ronnie Lott: "The ultimate competitor. The ultimate warrior. The ultimate hitter. Was the best big, slow corner I've ever seen for a number of years. Then when he lost too much speed to play corner he moved to safety. He had a couple of good years there, but he lost so much speed at the end that to compensate he was cheating and hurting the defense at times. (By cheating I mean) if you can't run, sometimes you break to a point where you think the ball is going so you're guessing."

On Joe Montana: "Tremendous comeback quarterback. Great clutch player. He was a guy at Notre Dame that had ice water in his veins, was at his best in the clutch, but he was extremely erratic throwing the ball. It turned out that his problem with inconsistency was his mechanics. Bill Walsh spent two years teaching him mechanics. And the rest is history. He also was the ideal quarterback for the West Coast offense because he had such great footwork, great feet and quickness of arm, mind and feet, which is what you need in that offense. Plus, he was a pinpoint accurate passer with good touch."

On Dan Rooney: "The whole Rooney family has just done so much for football. You can't say enough. And he was part of so many of the deals getting done with the union. If not for him we would have had a lot more labor unrest."

On Dave Wilcox: "The consummate strong-side backer. It's just a pity it took him so long to get (in the Hall of Fame). The only reason is he didn't play on a high-profile team. He played on a lot of bad 49er teams. But when you want to talk about a strong-side backer that could stack the run, jam the tight end and control the tight end and come off blocks and make plays, Dave Wilcox was it.

The Archives
2000 - 2001 Season