Elway, Sanders Ready to Make a Hall Mark

HOUSTON —  John Elway headed into retirement with two straight championships and plenty of well wishers. Barry Sanders left the game with no titles and lots of questions.

Elway, the star quarterback of the Denver Broncos, and Sanders, the superb running back with the Detroit Lions, are the favorites for election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame today. A minimum of four selections must be made, and it’s difficult to imagine either man falling short in his first year of eligibility.

Also on the ballot are Art Monk, Bob Hayes, Carl Eller, Jim Marshall, Harry Carson, Richard Dent, Gary Zimmerman, Bob Kuechenberg, Bob Brown, Cliff Harris, Lester Hayes, Rayfield Wright and George Young.

While Elway admits he is nervous and prefers not to look ahead to the election, others consider him a shoo-in.

“You can’t say anyone is a definite choice, but John should be as close to certain as you can be,” said broadcaster Troy Aikman, who quarterbacked the Dallas Cowboys to three Super Bowl victories, one more than Elway’s Broncos won.

“John was one of the great competitors and athletes in the game.”

In all, Elway, a nine-time Pro Bowler, threw for 51,475 yards, second to Dan Marino in league history, on 4,123 completions in 7,250 attempts. His 774 rushes lead all quarterbacks, and he passed for more than 3,000 yards and rushed for more than 200 yards for seven straight years.

When he retired in 1999, Elway was the NFL’s winningest quarterback (148 victories). He had the most fourth-quarter, game-winning or saving drives (47) and was the 1987 league MVP.

He was the No. 1 overall draft pick in 1983 -- the year of the quarterback, when six, including Marino and Hall of Famer Jim Kelly, were chosen on the first round. Elway refused to play for the Baltimore Colts and was traded to Denver, where he became an icon.

How Sanders is regarded in Detroit is difficult to judge. He is among the more enigmatic candidates for the Hall.

At 31, he quit the game just when he was within range of the career rushing record, then held by Walter Payton. Sanders unexpectedly told the Lions he was through just before the 1999 training camp, needing 1,457 yards to reach Payton’s mark. In his first 10 seasons, he rushed for more than that seven times.

Sanders was the first player to rush for 1,000 yards in each of his 10 seasons and he led the league in rushing four times. In 1997, he was co-MVP with Brett Favre after rushing for 2,053 yards, only the third player to exceed 2,000 in a season.

“Barry had not only the best chance of getting the record, but blowing the record way out, setting it in the 20,000-yard area,” said Emmitt Smith, who subsequently broke the mark.

Sanders’ parting with the Lions was filled with intrigue. He quit in his prime, and he didn’t announce his intentions publicly, instead doing so with a written statement released by his hometown newspaper, the Wichita Eagle.

He consistently avoided the pro football establishment after that, ending his silence with a news conference last year.

Unlike Elway, Sanders never got to a Super Bowl, playing in only one conference title game, after the 1991 season when the Lions lost to the Redskins.

“I think I would trade a Super Bowl championship for the Hall of Fame,” Sanders said. “It’s disappointing to have never even played in a Super Bowl. I feel like I missed out on something.”