Rick Snider of the Washington Examiner wrote a very interesting story about how Darrell Green’s eligibility for the Hall of Fame might hurt Art Monk’s ongoing campaign to get in himself.

At first I have to say that I thought the logic was pretty strong and I feared that this was the end of Monk.  But it turns out if you look back at recent HoF voting, you’ll find that team has little effect on the voting.  Twice in the last 13 years, two long time team mates were elected to the hall in the same year.  And 1994 inductees Tony Dorsett and Randy White and 2000 inductees Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott weren’t the only ones.  Certainly we all think of James Lofton as a Packer, but he shared three seasons in the Silver and Black with Marcus Allen.  And they shared the podium in 2003.

There is one more interesting case.  In 2001, the Hall called Jack Youngblood and Jackie Slater both long time LA/St. Louis Rams. The interesting case here is that the two overlapped for 8 years but in many ways are associated with two different eras of the team. Slater played for 11 more years after Youngblood retired and went with the team to a new city.

This mirrors the Monk/Green situation best. Monk and Green strapped it on together for ten years, but then Green continued for another 9 after that.  While Redskins fans certainly associate him with those Super Bowl teams, he is also associated with the Post-Gibbs era.  Green transcends the “we need to reward the 80′s Redskins” camp and is simply in the “we need to reward a great career” group.

That is what will save Monk if anything does.  Darrell Green is not just a Redskin getting voted in the way Snider depicts it.  He is one of the great cornerbacks in history.  The “Redskins lobbying” as he calls it won’t have to shift as he predicts.  There will be plenty of people to remember a rookie Darrell Green running down Tony Dorsett from behind on Monday Night Football that there won’t need be any vote splitting and hand wringing over inducted two players from the same team. 

Still, let’s all cross our fingers for Art.  It is no sure thing.  But he won’t have his teammate to blame if it doesn’t happen.

-DW