{"id":791,"date":"2007-02-03T22:38:06","date_gmt":"2007-02-04T02:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2007\/02\/03\/the-case-for-michael-irvin\/"},"modified":"2007-02-03T22:38:59","modified_gmt":"2007-02-04T02:38:59","slug":"the-case-for-michael-irvin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2007\/02\/03\/the-case-for-michael-irvin\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case for Michael Irvin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I learned that Michael Irvin made the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.profootballhof.com\/hall\/story.jsp?story_id=2309\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.profootballhof.com\/hall\/story.jsp?story_id=2309', 'NFL Hall of Fame');\" target=\"new\">NFL Hall of Fame<\/a> my first thought was that this was due to popularity; ESPN is a mighty fine marketing machine.  I decided to dig into the numbers a little bit to see if I could make a legitimate argument to support my case.<\/p>\n<p>The Hall of Fame bio\/press release states<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Irvin, the Dallas Cowboys\u2019 first round pick in 1988, caught 750 passes for 11,904 yards and 65 touchdowns during his 12-season career. He was named to five Pro Bowls and is a member of the NFL\u2019s All-Decade Team of the 1990s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Fair enough.  Did Irvin get in on the merit of being one of the top receivers of the 90s?  Maybe, but I keep hearing that Andre Reed and Art Monk deserve to be in the Hall.  Why Irvine, and not Reed and Monk?<\/p>\n<p>Some interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.profootballhof.com\/hof\/release.jsp?release_id=1402\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.profootballhof.com\/hof\/release.jsp?release_id=1402', 'numbers');\" target=\"new\">numbers<\/a> come to light if you look at the Top 20 receivers (courtesy of the Hall of Fame; current as of 2005).  Andre Reed and Art Monk not only have more receptions than Irvine, they also have more yards and more TDs.  Hmmm.<\/p>\n<p>After poking around a little, I do think that Irvin is a Hall of Fame receiver, but the only reason Irvine goes in the Hall in front of Reed or Monk has to be marketing.  Or maybe popularity contest.<\/p>\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_ addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share', '');\" class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/add-to-any\/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"\/><\/a>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\nif(wpa2a)wpa2a.script_load();\n\/\/--><\/script>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I learned that Michael Irvin made the NFL Hall of Fame my first thought was that this was due to popularity; ESPN is a mighty fine marketing machine. I decided to dig into the numbers a little bit to see if I could make a legitimate argument to support my case. The Hall of &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2007\/02\/03\/the-case-for-michael-irvin\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Case for Michael Irvin<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_ addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share', '');\" class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/add-to-any\/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"\/><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}