OPINION:
Maybe this, more than anything, explains why Joe Jacoby isn’t in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
From The Associated Press account of the finalists selected for the 2026 Canton class — those the story deemed noteworthy as players who didn’t advance: “former AFL star receiver Otis Taylor and Buffalo Bills special teams standout Steve Tasker.”
With all due respect to Taylor and Tasker, the fact that the Washington Redskins great wasn’t listed among those passed over — that he wasn’t the headliner of the group — may be the answer for the question that should have loomed over voters this year, last year, the year before and so forth:
Why isn’t Joe Jacoby in the Pro Football Hall of Fame?
Don’t they know who he is? Don’t they recognize that among the candidates who were under consideration, few have been wronged more than Jacoby? Certainly not former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Ken Anderson or San Francisco 49ers running back Roger Craig — two of the three players, along with former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end L.C. Greenwood, selected as finalists. Both Anderson and Craig are worthy candidates, but their cases didn’t cry out injustice like Jacoby’s does.
There must be a reason — not a good one — but still a reason that one of the anchors of the most famous offensive line in the history of football doesn’t have a bust in Canton.
It can’t be because he is not qualified. Jacoby went to four Pro Bowls and, more importantly, was named a three-time first-team All-Pro and appeared in four Super Bowls, winning three of them.
Jacoby faced the greatest pass rushers of all time. One of them is Hall of Fame tackle Randy White, who went up against Jacoby in the bitter Redskins-Dallas Cowboys rivalry games.
White told me in a 2018 interview that Jacoby was “one of the best that ever played the game.”
“When he would block down on me, it felt like a truck hit me,” White said. “He was solid as a rock, big and tall. Most of the time, those big guys are a little soft, but Joe was 310 pounds of solid muscle. When he would block down on me, I had to give it everything I could to smash into him.
“I can tell you he’s one of the greatest players I ever played against,” White said.
Jacoby was great enough to be named as one of four tackles on the NFL 1980s All-Decade Team. The other three are already in Canton. That should have told voters that there was some unfinished business.
Guess they weren’t paying attention.
Is that it? How could that be? Those Washington teams were on national television all the time — eight playoff appearances, four Super Bowls.
How could they not be paying attention? Was it because of the identity of The Hogs — the offensive line that became identified as a unit rather than individually? That didn’t stop Jacoby’s friend and teammate, Russ Grimm, from being elected to the Hall in 2010.
Was it because, under Joe Gibbs, Washington wasn’t flashy enough? Gibbs — also a Hall of Famer — was a master of underselling his teams throughout the season. Did everyone believe him?
Not flashy enough? Jacoby was a big part of the greatest quarter in Super Bowl history, when, facing the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII, after being down 10-0, the Washington offense put up 35 points behind quarterback Doug Williams. A rookie running back, Timmy Smith, ran for 204 yards. Jacoby helped pave the way for that.
“Playing over 20 years, in high school, college and the pros, I had never been involved in anything like I had seen in that 15 minutes of football,” Jacoby told me in my book, “Hail Victory, the Oral History of the Washington Redskins.” “I remember one play toward the end of the game when we scored our last touchdown. We were on the goal line, and we ran one of our goal-line plays, but the left guard, Raleigh McKenzie, had the wrong play. I was the only one who pulled, and we still scored. On the second long touchdown by Timmy Smith, you could see the look of dejection in [Denver’s] faces.”
Weren’t they paying attention?
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