Kevin Mawae was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame earlier this month. As one of 48 members on the board of selectors, I supported his candidacy, voting for him at every stage.
He was one of four offensive linemen finalists who are likely to be inducted soon. The others were guards Alan Faneca and Steve Hutchinson and offensive tackle Tony Boselli.
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What makes Mawae unusual is the position he played. He was a center, and he now is only the ninth modern era Hall of Famer who played center as his primary position. By comparison, there are 20 modern era offensive tackles, 26 modern era quarterbacks, 27 modern era wide receivers and 32 modern era running backs.
That helps explain why the candidacies of former Bears Jay Hilgenberg and Olin Kreutz haven’t advanced. In this column, I want to explain why Hilgenberg merits consideration.
One theory on the Hilgenberg oversight is he came into the league as an undrafted free agent, so he never was given the credit that a highly drafted player might be given. But being undrafted probably should strengthen Hilgenberg’s case.
“Jay’s path to the NFL was not an easy one and is a true example of how his work ethic and determination paid off,” guard Tom Thayer wrote in a letter to Hall of Fame selectors. “His ability to defy the odds and obstacles in order to make football a career is just one admirable trait Jay has.”
Not only is Hilgenberg not a Hall of Famer, he never even has been voted one of the 15 finalists of the Hall of Fame. That means his candidacy never has been discussed by the board on selection Saturday. Hilgenberg has had 21 cracks at making the list of finalists. He will have only four more, after which he will join the deep pool of senior candidates.
Before you @ me, rest assured I have made the case for Hilgenberg to be voted to the finalists repeatedly. For reasons I do not fully understand, his candidacy has not gained traction up to this point.
The case for Hilgenberg begins with the Pro Bowl. He played in seven of them back when being voted to the Pro Bowl meant something. Only four centers in history have more Pro Bowl or AFL all-star appearances than Hilgenberg’s seven.
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Hilgenberg also has seven Pro Bowl starts. Hall of Famer centers with fewer Pro Bowl starts include Dwight Stephenson (two), Mike Webster (five), Dermontti Dawson (five) and Mawae (four). The careers of Stephenson, Webster and Dawson overlapped with Hilgenberg’s.
Jim Ringo, a Hall of Fame center who played for the Packers and Eagles, also had seven Pro Bowl starts.
Dick Stanfel coached both Ringo and Hilgenberg. Before his passing in 2015, I asked him to compare the two. Stanfel, you should know, was a straight shooter who threw around compliments like George Halas allegedly threw around nickels.
“Jay compared very favorably to Jim Ringo,” said Stanfel, himself a Hall of Fame guard. “I think he definitely was a better player. He did everything well.”
Doing everything well meant run blocking despite being undersized. He was listed at 6-foot-3, 250 pounds. From 1985-91, the Bears had the best running game in the NFL twice, second-best twice and third-best once. Three of those five top-three finishes came after the retirement of Walter Payton.
Doing everything well meant pass blocking.
“In the pass block, he was as good as any center,” said Jerry Ball, one of the best nose tackles of his era, and a player who had many battles with Hilgenberg during his six seasons with the Lions.
Doing everything well even meant long snapping.
“… I believe that he is one of the best long snappers the NFL has seen to this day,” Thayer said. “Jay paved the way, creating a strategic skillset for the long snapper position and because of that, the bar has been set very high for those desiring same success.”
Jay Hilgenberg played 11 seasons with the Bears, spanning 163 games and 12 playoff games. (Photo by Rick Stewart/Allsport/Getty Images)And doing everything well meant leading. For five seasons, Hilgenberg was voted a captain by teammates on a dominant team that was full of strong personalities. The Bears of the ’80s were known for brawn, but Hilgenberg was known for brains.
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Ball said Hilgenberg was “very cerebral,” and like a quarterback in the way he handled the protections and directed traffic on the line and in the Bears’ backfield.
His study habits and instinct helped keep Jim McMahon — a quarterback who had a hard time staying healthy — on his feet. Ball talked about how Hilgenberg knew how to get to the edge so he could pin a defender, how he’d make a subtle change in how he hiked the ball to compensate for what he expected defensively, and how he used head fakes to try to entice defenders to abandon a gap.
Hilgenberg was more of a challenge mentally to Ball, but that doesn’t mean he was not a challenge physically. Ball, who played between 303 and 330 pounds in his career, said Hilgenberg didn’t drive him off the ball like some of the most physical centers, but he played with leverage and technique that helped him accomplish his goal.
“At times, Jay would run up my leg,” he said. “By that I mean he’s giving no ground and literally running to the point where our hips are pressing against one another. He played good with his body too. He kind of had a defensive lineman’s mentality.”
The Bears had arguably the best offensive line of the 1980s, and Hilgenberg was the glue. The Bears gave up 26 sacks in his last season with the team, 1991. In their next season, without him, they gave up 45.
None of the blockers on that line are in the Hall of Fame, though Jimbo Covert has been knocking on the door. He’s in the senior pool, and is very worthy as I explained here. It’s possible the candidacies of Covert and Hilgenberg have detracted from each other’s, though I’m not sure why.
The esteemed sportswriter Don Pierson and I recently completed work on a 320-page book that celebrates the Bears’ first 100 years, “Chicago Bears Centennial Scrapbook.” It will be published in the spring. Our editors suggested we rank the top 100 Bears of the franchise’s 100 years as part of the project. It was a difficult list to compile, a highly subjective exercise. But the outcome, I think, is pretty fascinating.
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I can share this: Hilgenberg was the second-highest-ranked player on the list who’s not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The highest-ranked player, coming in five spots ahead of him, was Covert. And there are 10 players who spent the majority of their careers with the Bears we ranked after Hilgenberg who have already been inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
On the subject of history, Hilgenberg was a groundbreaker. Bears coaches from his era have told me Hilgenberg was the first center to pull on a regular basis. This will be disputed in Pittsburgh, as Dawson often gets credit for it. But the Bears maintained they were pulling Hilgenberg before Dawson came into the league in 1988.
There are parallels between Hilgenberg and Dawson, who was justifiably inducted into the Hall of Fame on his second year of eligibility.
“I would say Dermontti Dawson and Jay were the same type of players,” Ball said. “In terms of their size, having to play with their wit, they were alike. If Jay was reincarnated, it was Dermontti Dawson.”
The great Reggie White played against a lot of centers in 15 years, including Hall of Famers Dawson, Mawae, Webster and Stephenson. Before his final game as a Packer in 1998, he was asked about great offensive linemen he had played against. White told an interviewer for the Packers’ gameday program that Hilgenberg “was as quick as any center I’ve ever seen.”
In that story White listed five offensive linemen as the greatest he has faced: Anthony Munoz, Jackie Slater, Ed White, Erik Williams and Jay Hilgenberg.
That should be enough for Hilgenberg to be a serious candidate for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
(Top photo: George Rose/Getty Images)
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