Looking down the Hall with appreciation, and an eye for the future
We’re celebrating Louisiana sports this weekend with the annual Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame festivities starting Thursday that culminate with the televised induction ceremony on Louisiana Public Broadcasting Saturday night at the Natchitoches Events Center.
I look forward to attending each year, and one of the things we either take for granted or forget is just how blessed we are to have so many terrific athletes, coaches and administrators and sports writers and broadcasters who have graced our state with their talents and their passion for excellence.
In this piece, I want to gush a bit about the proliferation of talented quarterbacks who have either hailed from Louisiana or emigrated from elsewhere to shine in the sport in the Bayou State.
There are 14 quarterbacks in the LSHOF who have the distinction of being members in at least one of five national Halls of Fame.
There are four in the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Terry Bradshaw, Peyton Manning, Y.A. Tittle and, most recently elected in the Class of 2026 to be inducted at Canton in August, Drew Brees.
There are seven others in the College Football Hall of Fame: Bert Jones, Chris Cagle, Doc Fenton, Lester Lautenschlager, Archie Manning, Abe Mickal and Doug Williams. James “Shack” Harris joins fellow Grambling grad Doug Williams among the state’s elite quarterbacks in the Black College Hall of Fame.
Matt Dunigan is a Louisiana-bred quarterback in the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame, and Joe Ferguson, a sensational prep quarterback at Shreveport’s Woodlawn before shining in college at Arkansas and in the NFL for three teams in 17 seasons (12 with the Buffalo Bills), is a member of the National High School Hall of Fame.
Data was culled from Pro Football Reference to figure out which states have over- or underperformed based on the expected number of NFL quarterbacks produced. An in-depth analytics study by ESPN, tracking where the best quarterbacks come from relative to state population, ranked Louisiana first in the nation with a score of 450.5, easily beating out second-place New York (315.4) and third-place Indiana (172.2).
Consider, too, we’ve got famous quarterbacks in the state’s shrine who have not been voted into a national Hall of Fame like Eli Manning, Stan Humphries, Jake Delhomme and Bobby Hebert. Steve Foley and Richie Petitbon were both star quarterbacks for Tulane, but they earned their stripes as Louisiana Sports Hall of Famers more for their sensational play as defensive backs in the NFL; Foley, with Denver and Petitbon with Chicago.
Eli Manning has been a modern-era finalist for the Pro Football Hall the last two years, and at first blush it’s astonishing that as a two-time Super Bowl champion and Super Bowl MVP, he has not been a shoo-in.
Only one other retired NFL quarterback who led his team to two Super Bowl victories has not been elected to the Pro Football shrine – Jim Plunkett, who is now 77 and not likely to get elected. Plunkett led Oakland to triumphs in Super Bowls XV and XVIII. He is a former Super Bowl MVP and winner of Rookie of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year honors, yet he was on only four winning teams as a starter, and he had more interceptions (198) than touchdowns (164).
Eli is No. 11 in the NFL in both all-time passing yards (57,023) and passing touchdowns (366), but the rap against him is his career record as a starter is 117-117, he never was a first-team All-Pro and he led the NFL in interceptions three times (2007, ’10 and ’13).
Nonetheless, I think the good outweighs the bad in his case.
Throughout his 16-year (2004-19) career — all spent with the Giants — he achieved numerous franchise records and milestones, including 236 regular-season games played, setting a Giants franchise record, and 210 consecutive starts, which was the second-longest streak by a quarterback in NFL history at the time.
Looking down the line, there are a few more guys who are future candidates for the LSHOF and probably at least a College Hall of Fame: LSU’s two most recent Heisman Trophy winners, Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels; and sensational Mississippi State quarterback and former NFL Rookie of the Year Dak Prescott, homegrown in Haughton.