Geno Atkins last 7 games....

[THE PISTONS]

(12-08-2020, 10:46 PM)Destro Wrote: Hall of Fame is too hard to get into. Look at the massive backlog of players that should be in and are not. Even look at the 15 finalist this year; ten will likely be back again for years. Look at all the absolute HOFs that will retire in the coming years. hat will push Atkins back. He plays a position that usually doesn't get a lot of love. He has zero SB appearances or even playoff wins. Even the All Decade team he was elected to is full of great players who will not make it into the Hall, as well.

Conspiracy against Bengals or not, the small market team is just not well know nationwide. Especially in the age of mass media, many NFL fans still don't even know him, let alone his play. His play, while excellent, has fallen off of a cliff. The longer you are away from being elite, the more people forget. Added into that, other players start chipping away at what you have done. Stats may be good when you played, but when people are looking at 2 or 3 other players doing the same thing in the league, right now, your dominance gets watered down. Go outside of Cincy and ask 100 NFL fans their top four or five best D lineman in the league and 90 likely won't say Geno. There's a thing some say "Can the story of the league be written without him?" With Geno, yeah, probably so. If he stopped playing tomorrow, it would be a 90 second story on NFL network and 45 seconds on ESPN. If a Watt or Bosa brother or Aaron Donald did, they would make "It's a Football Life" documentary immediately.

Bengals Hall of Fame / Ring of Honor? No doubt ( If there ever is one ).

Not saying I agree with all of the above, but the voters tend to lean these ways and why I think he does not get in.

IF Atkins were a Steeler, he'd be in the HOF probably 1st or 2nd ballot. There was a time when his stats were right up there with Aaron Donald.

HOF is hard to get into if you are a Bengal that hasn't won a playoff game.

It sucks. We wasted Green and Atkins careers. Same with Dunlap. Pickens. Dillon. etc.

Other teams have a ring of honor. The Bengals best players almost always leave with some sort of controversy with the franchise?