A Closer Look At Claude Humphrey's 2014 Hall of Fame Speech

The Pro Football Hall of Fame welcomed Claude Humphrey as one of its 2014 inductees, a well-deserved honor for one of the better pass rushers in the game of football. As you might expect, his speech was a good one.

Before we get to that, though, it's worth noting how long Humphrey waited to get here, and to have the NFL actually tally up all those sacks that made him so famous.

The NFL didn't start tracking sacks as a statistic until the year after Humphrey hung up his cleats and called it a career. Since then, the NFL has credited him with 122 sacks "unofficially," which would put him ahead of guys like Howie Long, Andre Tippett and Randy White. That's some stellar company to be in, let alone lead.

Tracking sacks or not, Humphrey was named a first-team All-Pro five times, made the second team three times and was named to six Pro Bowls over the course of his career. He was great, and still maintains he should be credited with more sacks than the NFL has suggested. He probably should have been inducted into the Hall a long time ago. His eligibility began in the 80's, but he wasn't a final 15 candidate until 2003. He was named as two senior candidates in 2008 and 2009, but was edged out both years.

James Dator breaks down the entire speech here, and it's worth checking out the transcript on the Pro Football Hall of Fame site. We tip our collective caps to Humphrey and hope he's the first of many longtime Falcons to be enshrined in the hallowed halls of Canton, Ohio.