Rundown (Pass Rushers)

In most professional sports, the Hall of Fame is the highest individual honor you can receive as a player. While there’s some variance due to the particular selection process or governing body that is deemed the standard in the respective sport, usually the distinction remains of the highest order. In professional football, there’s absolutely no denying that the prestigious gold jacket is the utmost honor you could garner. When discussing pass rushers, a historically great position, the lines become blurred and the margins for such honors are razor thin.

In saying that, simply being a great player isn’t enough to earn your way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. You need sustained greatness and to rack up the individual accolades such as All-Pro’s, Pro Bowls, MVP’s, DPOY’s, OPOY’s, so forth and so on. Surely there’s an aspect of politics and media bias that can skew these honors, and that can lead to some really great players falling through the cracks. There’s also the scenario where some of the greats fall victim to playing at the same time as other players that could go down as THE greatest ever. Irregardless, these players have left their marks on the game in undeniable ways.

5 Hall of Fame level pass rushers

Kansas City Chiefs OLB Derrick Thomas (58) – Joe Ledford/AP Photo

In any event, we’re here to shine some light on the Hall of Fame level pass rushers that haven’t “earned” their way to canton yet or have, but have also become severely under appreciated over time. Here’s some of the most under appreciated (or underrated how ever you feel) pass rushers in NFL history.

Dwight Freeney:

7x Pro Bowl, 4x All Pro, 1x sack leader, 2010’s All Decade Team, 1x Super Bowl Champ, & 125.5 sacks.

Cam Wake:

5x Pro Bowl, 4x All Pro, 100.5 sacks, 22 FF’s, & 39 sacks ( 2 year CFL stint).

Robert Mathis:

5x Pro Bowl, 1x All Pro, 123 sacks, 54 FF’s, & 1x Super Bowl Champion.

Derrick Thomas:

9x Pro Bowl, 5x All Pro, 1990’s All Decade Team, DROY, 126.5 sacks, & 41 FF’s.

Jared Allen:

5x Pro Bowl, 4x All Pro, 2x sack leader, 136 sacks, 57 PBU’s, & 32 FF’s.