Former Pittsburgh Steelers ILB Andy Russell passed away on Feb. 29 at the age of 82. He won two Super Bowls with the team in the 1970s and made the Pro Bowl seven times. He defined excellence at the position in Pittsburgh before Jack Ham and Jack Lambert came into the NFL.
And, as Clark Judge of the Talk of Fame Network argued in a recent article, Andy Russell deserved better from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “What he did was so exemplary that he merited more from the game he served than what he received”.
In other words, he deserves to be in Canton. He’s not. And he’s never really come close. Judge notes that Russell never even once qualified as a finalist or a semifinalist for enshrinement in over four decades. How many off-ball linebackers with seven Pro Bowls on their resume are not in the Hall of Fame?
A quick search through the Pro Football Reference database yields an interesting result. It registers 33 off-ball linebackers with at least seven Pro Bowls. Of those who are eligible for the Hall of Fame, only three are not enshrined.
Russell is one of them. The others are Lance Briggs of the Chicago Bears and Maxie Baughan. The latter played for the Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Rams in the 1960s. He reached the Pro Bowl nine times but is not in the Hall of Fame. Baughan died last year at the age of 85.
He deserved better from Canton as well. But unlike Russell, Baughan has made the finalist lists recently for the senior committee selections. Randy Gradishar of the Denver Broncos finally got in just recently via the senior committee. How is it that Russell isn’t even making finalist lists?
Judge writes of a group of Russell’s supporters pilgrimaging to Canton to poll Hall of Fame voters. “But his name seemed to provoke little interest within the senior committee, though it had been discussed”, he wrote. Support from his Hall of Fame teammates never amounted to much either.
Many paint Russell as a good or very good player on a great defense. They made up the mythical Hall of Very Good for such players. But he predated the Steel Curtain and the rise of the defense in the 1970s. Understand, Russell already made a Pro Bowl back in 1968. By the time they drafted Lambert, he had five Pro Bowls under his belt. And an All-Pro nod on top of that.
Had Russell played another two seasons, he would have added another Super Bowl to his resume. Three more seasons throws another trophy on top. Of course, he retired at 35 after 12 NFL seasons —missing time while serving in the military.
I believe the senior committee elects Russell for induction into the Hall of Fame in the relatively near future. His resume is simply too sound to remain ignored forever. It’s only a shame that his long-overdue enshrinement will have to be posthumous, for whatever reason, whenever it comes.
