January 12, 1969. Kirk Buchner and Paul Lawrence look at Super Bowl III, one of the most important football games of all time.

2025 Pre-Season Rank #47, 2024 Pre-Season Rank #47, 2023 Pre-Season Rank #61, 2022, Pre-Season Rank #137. Peak Period: 2019-23

Davis, a veteran player, has experienced a significant rise in the second half of his career.  From 2019 to 2023, Davis was an All-Pro (one First Team and four Second Team), and his versatility and leadership were the keys to some very good New Orleans defenses in the early 2020s. 

As good as he has been in his 30s, he turns 38 this season, and his Hall of Fame resume looks to be “too little, too late.”  He's back with the NFL team where he started it all, the New York Jets, and if he continues to age like wine, who knows!

Regular visitors of Notinhalloffame.com know that we are slowly working on the top 50 of every major team in the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB.  Once that is done, we intend to look at how each team honor their past players, coaches and executives.  As such, it is news to us that there will be three new members inducted into the New York Jets Ring of Honor in 2022.

The team announced that Derrell Revis, Nick Mangold and D’Brickashaw Ferguson will be inducted this upcoming season.

Revis is arguably the biggest name of the three.  Playing at Cornerback, Revis was taken in the First Round in 2007 (14^thOverall) from Pittsburgh, and he rapidly became one of the most explosive Defensive Backs in the NFL.  “Revis Island” became synonymous with elite coverage, and while he was with New York, he was chosen for four Pro Bowls and three First Team All-Pros.

Mangold played at Center for the entirety of his 11-year career, and would start all of his 164 Games for the team.  The product of Ohio State went to seven Pro Bowls and was a two-time First Team All-Pro.

Ferguson played his entire 10-year pro career with New York after the Jets after they chose the Tackle with the Fourth Overall Pick in 2006.  He started all of his 160 games with the Jets.

The honors will take place for Mangold (Sept 25), Ferguson (Oct 30) and Revis (Nov 27).

These are the first entrants since Kevin Mawae in 2017.  They will also join Weeb Ewbank, Winston Hill, Curtis Martin, Don Maynard, Joe Namath, Larry Grantham, Freeman McNeil, Gerry Philbin, Al Toon, Wesley Walker, Joe Klecko, Mark Gastineau and Marty Lyons.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate the newest members to the New York Jets Ring of Honor

We have lost another football legend today.

Former New York Jets Wide Receiver, Don Maynard, passed away today at the age of 86.

A college star at Texas Western (the future UTEP), Maynard was taken by the New York Giants in the draft, playing for them sparingly as a rookie, to the point where he left the team for Hamilton of the Canadian Football League the season after.  In his third professional year, Maynard returned to New York City, but this time with the Titans of the upstart American Football League.

Maynard would become the team’s top Wide Receiver, exceeding 1,000 Yards five times, and winning the AFL Receiving Title in 1967.  A four-time Pro Bowl and All-AFL Team Selection, Maynard helped lead the Jets to win at Super Bowl III, as the primary target for Joe Namath.

Retiring after a final season with the St. Louis Cardinals, Maynard left the game with an exceptional 11,834 Receiving Yards (a record at the time) and 88 Touchdowns. 

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to offer our condolences to the fans, friends and family of Don Maynard.

Brandon Marshall was a really good Wide Receiver, but was he a Hall of Fame wide out?

Marshall was a fourth-round pick from Central Florida in the 2006 Draft by the Denver Broncos, and he was a starter the next season, where he put up three straight 1,100-yard seasons, two of which earned him a Pro Bowl selection. Marshall was dealt to the Miami Dolphins in 2010, playing there for two seasons, extending his streak of four-digit Yardage seasons, and earning a third Pro Bowl.  This was good, but his best was yet to come.

Joining the Chicago Bears in 2012, he had his first (and only) First Team All-Pro year when he set a personal best of 1,508 Yards.  Marshall had another 1,295 Yards, and was a Pro Bowler again.  After an average third year in Chicago, Marshall joined the New York Jets, and went for 1,502 Yards and led the NFL with 14 Receiving Touchdowns.

Marshall had one more good year with the Jets, but his skill eroded, and he bounced to the New York Giants in 2018 and the Seattle Seahawks in 2019.  He retired with healthy numbers of 970 Receptions, 12,351 Yards, and 83 Touchdowns. 

2025 Pre-Season Rank #43, 2024 Pre-Season Rank #56, 2023 Pre-Season Rank #63, 2022 Pre-Season Rank #99, 2021 Pre-Season Rank #108, 2020 Pre-Season Rank #140.  Peak Period 2019-23.

Minkah Fitzpatrick has been a three-time First Team All-Pro, and since he debuted for the Miami Dolphins in 2018, he has earned the reputation of having one of the highest football IQs. Able to shift effortlessly in any Defensive Back position, Fitzpatrick starts 2026 for his third team, the New York Jets.

The Hall is a tricky path for Fitzpatrick, who, as beloved as he is, has to carve a more dominant path in his 30s in a position often overlooked by Hall of Fame eyes.  This isn’t writing Minkah off by any means, but a monster season in New York would be massive for his chances.

The 4^th Overall Pick in 1977 from USC, Marvin Powell wasted little time affixing himself as the starting Right Tackle for the New York Jets.  In 1979, Powell would begin a five-year run as a perennial Pro Bowl Selection, and in '79, 1981 & 1982, he was a First Team All-Pro.  Without Powell's protection and presence, the offensive game would not have been as good, and he was certainly one of the most underrated players in Jets history.

Art Powell played in the Canadian Football League for two seasons before the Philadelphia Eagles drafted him in 1959.  As an NFL rookie, Powell played returner and defensive back but later joined the New York Titans (later renamed the Jets) of the American Football League.  With the Titans, Powell would lead the AFL in Receiving Touchdowns (14) in the league's first year of existence, and in 1962 he would finish first in Receiving Yards (1,130).

He joined the Oakland Raiders, where he stayed for four years, and was named an AFL All-Star each season.  In his first season there (1963), he would lead the AFL in Receiving Yards (1,304) and Touchdown Receptions (16) and was a First Team All-Pro.  Powell also exceeded his yardage in 1964 (1,361) and again had a four-digit output in yardage in 1966 (1,026).  He would also never have fewer than 11 TDs in a season as a Raider.  Powell finished his career with one season each in Buffalo and Minnesota.

Powell would accumulate 8,046 Receiving Yards and 81 Touchdowns over his 177 Game career in American Football, and in 2024, it looked like he was going to get his bust in Canton.  The Senior Committee put him forward as a Finalist, but along with Buddy Parker, the main committee passed on Powell.  This does not bode well for him in the future.

From the University of Mississippi, Larry Grantham was a second-round pick by the New York Titans in 1960 (a 15^th-round pick in the NFL) and a member of the original team. 

Grantham would be a great choice for the Titans (soon to be Jets), as he was one of the best linebackers the organization ever had and the backbone of their defense throughout the 1960s.  The tackling factory went on an immediate streak of five First Team All-Pro Selections, with Second Team Selections in three of the next four seasons.  He was part of the Jets' shocking Super Bowl III win, and the tackling machine spent 13 years with the Jets, where he was a model of consistency.

It is not a stretch by any means to state that Nick Mangold was the greatest New York Jets center ever.  We could easily go a step further and state that he is one of the best offensive linemen in franchise history.

From Ohio State, Mangold started immediately at quarterback as a rookie, and he would start and play 164 Games, all for the Jets.  Mangold made his first of seven Pro Bowls in 2008, and he was also named to two First Team All-Pro rosters (2009 & 2010).  Mangold will likely receive consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but he might be a bubble candidate.

This is a first for us. 

As many of you know, we are (methodically) working on our top 50 of every team, which will eventually lead to how each franchise in MLB, NHL, NFL and NBA treat their former players in terms of retired numbers, rings of honor and franchise Halls of Fames. 

We can’t really say that we envisioned one team taking a potshot as to how another one handles that, but that is exactly what transpired today.

In a speech at Gillette Stadium during the New England Patriots Charitable Foundation Awards the son of Pats owner, Robert Kraft, Josh Kraft, told those in attendance to check out the Patriots Hall of Fame and stated that “It’s a lot better than the Jet’s Hall of Fame, which is non-existent”.

Ouch.

While the division rival does not have a physical Hall of Fame, the Jets do have a Ring of Honor with seventeen members and have retired the numbers of five former players.  What New York has done is more than typical for a National Football League organization.

Either way, it is a banter that we here at Notinhalloffame.com love!

The hard-luck Cincinnati Bengals have yet to win a Super Bowl, but it was Boomer Esiason who brought them closer than anyone else had when they lost to the San Francisco 49ers on a last-minute drive in Super Bowl XXIII.  Fortunately for Esiason, his career did not need a Super Bowl Ring to be considered great.

Replacing the productive Ken Anderson, the powerful southpaw became one of the premier Quarterbacks in the league.  During his time in Cincinnati, Esiason was a consistent producer, and he turned the Bengals into a high-powered attack.  Mastering the play-action pass, Boomer used his strength and speed and consistently produced high-yardage games.

Boomer Esiason may be best known to younger football fans as a competent broadcaster, but he is still revered in Southern Ohio.  He may have done enough to at least get on the ballot one day, but in this age of the Quarterback, his all-time statistical rankings will likely plummet in the near future.

Although Quarterback sacks have always happened in football, the NFL didn't officially track them until 1982.  The first labeled “sackmaster” of American football would have to be the flamboyant and somewhat controversial Mark Gastineau, who terrorized Quarterbacks; and not because he had sex with Brigitte Nielsen.

Mark Gastineau seemed built to terrorize gunslingers.  It was what he was best at, and it could be assured that if the Jets were on the schedule, the opposing QB would have a sleepless night before the game.  Gastineau twice led the league in the new official statistic and set a season record that Michael Strahan wouldn't break until 2001.  As the sack became in vogue, Gastineau became synonymous with it, especially as he developed his “sack dance”.

For a four-year period, it was hard to argue that Mark Gastineau was not among the top three pass rushers in the NFL.  Some have accused him of being too one-dimensional, and while he did rub some people the wrong way, he faces a long climb if he ever wants to see himself in Canton, though Joe Klecko's induction does help.

A member of the 100 Sack club (133.5 exactly), John Abraham was a pounding Defensive End who terrorized Quarterbacks for years. He exceeded ten sacks eight times in a season and was a popular figure during his time with the New York Jets and the Atlanta Falcons. A very intriguing candidate, Abraham is, as of this writing, in the top ten all-time in Forced Fumbles and Tackles for Loss and the top fifteen in Quarterback Sacks.  He would go to five Pro Bowls and was twice a First Team All-Pro, and that first step he took off the snap remains in the nightmares of offensive linemen.