Art Monk will get in the Hall of Fame this year. Peter King has gone on record, in his Monday Morning QB and said he finally, mercifully supports an Art Monk bid.
So many of the things Carson did can't be quantified. Similarly with Monk. Not only did he lead the NFL in all-time receptions when he retired, but he blocked superbly and was the most important locker-room influence on a three-time Super Bowl champion. I'm voting for him.
Many will remember that Peter King was the most vocal anti-Monk and was largely responsible for him not getting in to the HoF sooner. King has enormous influence among voters and his arguments, presented first at one of the HoF meetings, probably this one:
I forget which year it was, but we spent 46 minutes debating the merits of Monk in one meeting. That's the longest debate I recall in my decade-and-a-half at this post.
He would continue to make the relentlessly stupid argument over and over again for why Monk did not deserve it. Now Peter King has come around.
But why the change of heart? Because Peter King finally realized that numbers don't tell the entire story about a wide receiver (even if they did, Art Monk overwhelmingly deserves to be in). But rather it was the intangibles that made him such a great teammate. As examples...
As I made my rounds of training camps this year, I asked veteran coaches about Monk and the one word that kept coming up was "unselfish." His downfield blocking prowess kept coming up. His long-term numbers were almost Yastrzemski-like (one or two great years, lots of productive ones, very reliable). But when I talked to Joe Gibbs on Friday, the one thing that stood out was the body of work we don't see -- the downfield blocking, the quiet leadership, and this: Unlike his louder receiving mates Clark and Ricky Sanders, Monk, according to Gibbs, never once said he wanted the ball more. "We used him almost as a tight end a lot," said Gibbs, "and not only did he do it willingly, he was a great blocker for us. If he'd been a squeaky wheel, who knows how many catches Art would have had. But he cared about one thing -- the team."
And just like that, a wrong is potentially righted.
I am pleased that Peter King has come around. It was one of the biggest crimes in Football that Monk was not in the HoF and I have enormous confidence that he soon will be. For that I'm thankful.