LAS VEGAS — At some point around the time Julius Peppers was finishing his first stint with the Carolina Panthers, it was becoming clear that his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame was a real possibility.
By the end of his second stint with the Panthers, it became clear it was a question of not if, but when.
And with the five years that have passed since he retired in the place it all started, the perspective time allows only cements the notion that he was one of the truly exceptional ones.
Tonight, we'll find out if Peppers becomes one of the elites among the elites, a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
"It's an outrage if he's not," former teammate Mike Rucker said flatly, and Rucker isn't one given to hyperbole. He saw it. He knows. It seems apparent to him, in his plain-spoken Midwestern way.
Of course, there's no shame in needing more than one year. The bronze bust at the Hall will outlive us all whether you arrive in Canton in your first year of eligibility or your fourth (like Dick "Night Train" Lane) or 14th (like Lynn Swann).
But there's something unique about the ones that take the minimum amount of time to arrive, the relatively easy decisions in a process that's supposed to be hard, and is. (Look at this year's list of 15 finalists. Don't say which one deserves to be in. Say which 10 don't.)
It's reasonable to suggest that all of this year's finalists deserve to eventually be enshrined, but only two of this year's 15 are in their first year of eligibility, Peppers and tight end Antonio Gates.
Since the Hall began identifying groups of 15 finalists in 1970 (the Hall inducted its first class in 1963), only 89 players have been picked in their first year as finalists. There are only 371 Hall of Famers total, which mean fewer than a quarter of them go in the first time.
A lot of them are guys who can be identified by one name, like Lombardi or Unitas or Butkus, or for younger viewers, Montana or Rice or Deion or Peyton. That's who we're talking about here.
So the idea of Pep joining the LTs of the word (mostly Lawrence Taylor [1999], but more recently, LaDainian Tomlinson [2017]) seems natural and deserved because, during his 17-year career, he was nothing short of a force of nature.
The stats tell the story easily enough. He finished with 159.5 sacks, fourth-most all-time, trailing Bruce Smith (first ballot), Reggie White (first ballot), and Kevin Greene (fifth).
That's the company he keeps.
