My annual pitch for Roger Craig's Hall of Fame enshrinement

This time of the year always hits a nerve with me.

On Saturday, Robert Brazile, Bobby Beathard, Ray Lewis, Terrell Owens, Jerry Kramer, Brian
Urlacher, Brian Dawkins, and Randy Moss will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as
members of the Class of 2018. I have absolutely no issue with any of the inductees being new
members. The only real issues I have are Owens not being present and why it took so damn
long for Kramer but those are other conversations for another day.

To this day, however, I will continue to champion the idea that Roger Craig belongs in the Hall of
Fame. I must admit some bias but I’m willing to come clean. This story hits a nerve with me
because I grew up in Northern California (Napa, CA to be exact) as a 49er fan. The 49ers became
a revered dynasty that most people know them as today.

San Francisco drafted Craig in 1983 in the second round from Nebraska. Three years later in 1986,
San Francisco drafted his Cornhusker teammate (Tom Rathman) in 1986. I had a great NFL team
to root for in the 49ers, even though they have been mostly bad since 2002 with the exception of
the Jim Harbaugh years (2011-2014). I just needed a good college team to root for – but Cal and
Stanford just didn’t do it for me. They still don’t but I respect the job well done by Stanford head
coach David Shaw. USC has a great tradition in football. So does UCLA in basketball – but rooting
for a Southern California team was a hard sell for me. Well, it still is as much as I respect their
tradition. So I became a Husker fan in 1986. I later became a Husker graduate in 1997.

I moved back to Northern California in 1998. Sorry, I can’t bring myself to saying “NoCal” or “SoCal.”
That sounds way too damn dorky and juvenile. When I hear people those terms, it sounds like a
pipsqueak that has not reached puberty yet.

Back to Craig for just a moment. Well, for the rest of this commentary. Craig was the first player in
NFL history to run and receive for at least 1,000 yards in the same season. He ran for 1,050 yards
on 214 carries and led the NFL with 92 catches for 1,016 yards in 1985 and scored a team high 15
touchdowns that season. Since Jerry Rice was a rookie and was not yet the legend he eventually
became, Craig was the 49ers’ main weapon.

In 1988, Craig was named NFL Offensive Player of the Year by the Associated Press. He ran for
a career high 1,502 yards and caught an additional 76 passes for 534 yards.

Marshall Faulk achieved the 1,000-1,000 club status as a member of the then St. Louis Rams in
1999. Faulk retired in 2005 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011. Given that Faulk
totaled 12,279 rushing yards in his 13 year career, I’d be hard-pressed to argue against his
enshrinement. Keep in mind; rushing for 10,000 yards is normally viewed as a right of passage to
the Hall-of-Fame. Craig, however, had to run on muddy fields at Candlestick Park in December
while Faulk played his entire career in a dome-stadium on the Astroturf in St. Louis and
Indianapolis.

Craig rushed for 8,189 yards but had just two 1,000 yard rushing seasons. He also added 4,911
more yards as a receiver on 566 catches, scoring 73 touchdowns (56 running, 17 receiving) in the
process while playing both fullback and running back. Keep in mind, Craig caught only 16 passes
in his entire college career. He also had to share carries with Wendell Tyler, Joe Cribbs and Tom
Rathman, not to mention there was this historic passing combination known as Joe Montana to Rice.
To be fair, Faulk shared the spotlight with Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison in Indianapolis and
later Kurt Warner, Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt in St. Louis but he did not have a backfield mate that
he had to share carries alongside.

His final memory to some 49er fans is a costly fumble that enabled the New York Giants to beat San
Francisco 15-13 in the 1991 NFC Championship game. Some 49er fans I have spoken to have said,
“Well, if Craig didn’t fumble the 49ers would have Three Peated as Super Bowl Champs.” I find that
point debatable.

Keep in mind, Montana got knocked out of that game thanks to Giants defensive Leonard Marshall’s
crushing blow. Steve Young, who later went on to have a Hall-of-Fame career, replaced Montana.
Let’s face it, Young could not have been trusted in a big game then. Heck, he was a hit or miss
proposition in a big game after he became an All-Pro and NFL MVP in 1992.

Again, Craig might not have the gaudy rushing stats of say Faulk or Tiki Barber. However, with
Craig’s hybrid style of playing running back, you have to look beyond numbers and see how he
revolutionized the game as we know it today. When you watch NFL running backs like say Bryan
Westbrook, LaDainian Tomlinson, Adrian Peterson or Reggie Bush operate as dual threats and many
others in today’s game – just remember, they owe a debt of gratitude to Craig because he started the
change of a trend where the running back primarily carried the ball. As opposed to carry, catch AND
pick up blitzes.

And oh, by the way, Craig has three Super Bowl rings, two more than Faulk, Westbrook, Barber,
Tomlinson, Peterson and Bush combined.