Will former Pittsburgh Steelers guard Alan Faneca finally get elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this week? We’ll find out for sure Saturday night when the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020 is introduced during NFL Honors, a two-hour prime-time awards special to air nationally on the eve of Super Bowl LIV at 9 p.m. (ET and PT) on FOX. Ahead of this year’s decisions on who all will comprise the 2020 Modern Era Class, Faneca, a finalist for the fifth time this year, is getting some support from a Hall of Fame linebacker he played against during his career, Brian Urlacher.
“Alan’s athletic ability and physicality at the guard position set the tone for their whole team,” Urlacher said in a statement released Monday by the Steelers PR Department. “He played at such a high level for such a long time. You know who the good players are. To do it as long as he did it – and as good as his teams were all those years, I think success with a team has a lot to do with it as well and the way you win as a team. They won up front. They ran the ball; they protected their quarterback. Like I said, that started with him. He was the guy up front.”
That’s quite an honorable thing for Urlacher to do and especially with one his career lowlights coming against Faneca and the Steelers in a 2005 game at Heinz Field. In that game, Steelers running back Jerome Bettis ran right over Urlacher for a five-yard touchdown run in the third quarter in what ultimately would be a big 21-9 Pittsburgh win over the Chicago Bears. Faneca can be seen in replays of that Bettis touchdown pushing his running back from behind and thus over Urlacher for the final two yards.
Urlacher, a four-time First Team All-Pro and eight-time Pro Bowl selection during his 13-year career, was a member of the 2018 Pro Football Hall of Fame Class and deservingly so. Faneca, on the other hand, has yet to find his way into Canton despite being a six-time First Team All-Pro and nine-time Pro Bowl selection during his 13-year career. Faneca also won a Super Bowl during his career, something that Urlacher failed to do.
Faneca’s wait to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame needs to come to an end this week. He’s more than deserving and his resume shows it.
