Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Not much meat on the bone in the typical sense of HOF accomplisments:

1x All Pro
2x Pro Bowl
35 Career INT's(91st all time)
Part of some very good Bears defenses
One of the all time "Good Guys"
"Invented"/mastered the "Peanut Punch"

After that you have to delve into he's one of the all time leaders in FF(6th) but that stat has only been around officially since 1993 and there are glaring flaws and holes in it. It's very possible he's underrated in a sense from the Pro Bowl perspective but there's been this odd push from Bears fans to make him into a HOFer since his retirement by combining his INT and FF numbers to make him one of the most dominant turnover guys of his era.

Thoughts?

I'd put Tillman in the HOF before I'd put in Ken Riley...but I think he's HOVG.

The resume doesn't look like either to me and he'll have to wait until 2040 for HOVG consideration - the landscape could be very different by then.

This topic was on the main forum once upon a time.

Said the same then. The all-pro voting was horrible during his career, and pro bowl was typical 'reputation' selections, particularly for DB's. So his resume in that regard was never going to look like it should. Plus once he did start getting the honors he got injured so cost him at least a year, possibly 2-3 years of pro bowl nods and maybe another all-pro selection since at that time he was finally 'known' to the all-pro voters.

So no, doubt he'll ever be anywhere close to the HOF but in "my" HOF he would meet the minimum criteria -- which a lot of current and projected future HOF'ers do not.

Great player. I argued on our forum -before he got his first pro bowl selection- that he was arguably the most underrated player of my time or at least his era.

The other player I generally listed with him in those/these type of topics was Evan Mathis, for a similar story. When the Bengals actually played Mathis he was pretty clearly one of the best and he immediately proved it when he went to the Eagles -- except no all-pro, no pro bowl and the next year repeat performance as arguably the best guard in football and again, no all-pro, no pro bowl. Finally gets his honors and then like Tillman, misses half a season due to injury (yet Mathis still got a pro bowl nod that season). But similarly, his honors resume is all messed up because all-pro voters were bad during their era. A should be 4-time all-pro with the matching pro bowl selections (or including the half season pro bowl a 5x pro bowler.) Then the debate would be all the games he didn't start in the first half of his career but like Tillman, for me at least he would meet my minimum criteria, which again, a lot of current, projected future and players in the conversation for the HOF do not meet.

Basically, for me, they're two players with the minimum requisite amount of HOF-type seasons who didn't get the credit (honors/all-pro/pro bowl) for those seasons so only those who saw it at the time will ever know and that's not really how the HOF works -- it needs to be officially on the resume and for them, it won't ever be and thus it's likely they'll never get serious HOF consideration, despite being better football players than those from their era that will either get in, be finalists, etc.

Thanks Matt - this provides context I wouldn't have known about.

Looks like you felt like I did when John T. said if every 1x All-Pro was in the HOF, it would be really big (re: Glenn Presnell).

I think he was underrated but HOVG not HOF. His career Passer Rating allowed was 78.8, so fine but not great. That said he's absolutely one of my favorite players to watch play, stout in run support a real team guy, really liked the way he played.

NWebster wrote:I think he was underrated but HOVG not HOF. His career Passer Rating allowed was 78.8, so fine but not great. That said he's absolutely one of my favorite players to watch play, stout in run support a real team guy, really liked the way he played.

i second that notion n webster

Charles Tillman is not PF HOF material, IMO. He had some great years, but IMO he is not one of the best CBs of all-time.

Certainly in the discussion for HOVG.

For those who also posted in the Andrew Luck thread, who would you vote for in HOVG if it was between Luck and Tillman for a final spot?