Ex-Broncos star Randy Gradishar holds out hope for Hall of Fame but one selector calls him a 'long shot'

May 23—Randy Gradishar has spent nearly half his life waiting to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But for 34 years, nobody has called his name.

Gradishar, 71, starred for the Broncos from 1974-83, making seven Pro Bowls and earning two first-team All-Pro nods at linebacker. He first was eligible for the Canton, Ohio, shrine in 1989, the year he turned 37.

Two decades passed of not being selected. So after 25 years of being inactive as a player, he became a seniors candidate.

Another 15 years has gone by, and Gradishar remains shut out.

"It's been 30-some years and I'm just hoping some day that it might happen," Gradishar said in an interview with The Denver Gazette. "I know my statistics over the years and they're better than some of the guys already in there. That's why I believe it's a political reason. For some reason, somebody doesn't like me, I guess, and so I have gone through this year after year."

There will be three senior finalists nominated for the class of 2024, and all are expected to be elected to the Hall next February. The process gets underway in earnest this month with the 12 members of the senior selection committee being sent a ballot of about 80 or 90 candidates. They will trim it down by a vote to about 25 in June.

The list will be cut to about 15 in July. Then in August, three will emerge.

Longtime NFL writer Rick Gosselin is on the 49-member Hall of Fame selection committee as well as being on the senior committee, and he has been pushing for years for Gradishar to be inducted. But Gosselin said the odds remain against him.

"There are (371) players in the Hall of Fame, and only 34.5 percent played defense," Gosselin said. "And 75.4 percent of the players in the Hall of Fame made an all-decade team, and Gradishar didn't. And 64.1 percent of the players won championships. Randy didn't win a championship. So if you're a defensive player who didn't make all-decade and didn't win a championship, you're a long shot."

Until last year, Gosselin for about a decade was one of three selection committee members who ran the website TalkofFame.com. The site regularly featured articles discussing candidates for the Hall, and Gosselin wrote an endorsement for Gradishar.

Gosselin is retired as a newspaper writer, but one of his pursuits now is regularly putting out a power poll in which he asks several hundred recipients, from football writers to current and former NFL executives to former players, poll questions. One recent question was to vote for one of eight senior candidate linebackers considered most deserving of the Hall of Fame.

The results were not too good for Gradishar.

Out of 193 votes cast, Gradishar finished fourth with 26 votes. He came in behind Clay Matthews (46), Carl Banks (41) and Wilber Marshall (27). Never mind that Gradishar was chosen for nearly as many Pro Bowls as the eight all three of those players made combined.

"I gave (voters) eight linebackers that I believe all should be Hall of Famers," said Gosselin, who also had in the poll Mike Curtis (24 votes), Tommy Nobis (20), Maxie Baughan (7) and Joe Fortunato (2). "And that's just one position. It's so competitive for those three senior spots."

Gosselin watched Gradishar play regularly when he covered the Chiefs for the Kansas City Star and said he passed the "eye test" for being a Hall of Famer. Gosselin later worked for the Dallas Morning News before retiring in 2019.

Gosselin said that on the senior committee, Jeff Legwold, who covers the Broncos for ESPN, also has pushed hard to get Gradishar inducted. However, they are just two of the members.

"I just have to wait and see how it's going to go," Gradishar said. "I'm just a firm believer that if the Lord is going to allow it to happen, then it will happen. But I don't go day after day thinking, 'Why haven't I been elected to the hall of fame.' "

Gradishar was optimistic about being inducted in 2020 when the Hall of Fame, for a special class on the 100th anniversary of the NFL, named him one of 20 senior finalists for 10 spots. But not a single linebacker was selected.

"You think and you hope but that certainly didn't happen either," Gradishar said. "But I don't go calling sports people and saying, 'Hey, how come I'm not in with what I did?' That's never been my philosophy. I feel like if you're going to get an award or an honor, it's going to come your way. My name keeps coming up periodically, so there's still a chance."

Gradishar was a modern-era finalist in 2003 and 2008 before he began to be considered by the senior committee. Gradishar was one of 12 senior candidates discussed last year before the committee decided on linebacker Chuck Howley, defensive lineman Joe Klecko and cornerback Ken Riley as finalists. All later received the necessary 80 percent of the votes required by the 49-member selection committee for induction.

"It's ridiculous," said Joe Collier, Gradishar's defensive coordinator throughout his career. "I really don't know why he hasn't been inducted because of the statistics he had and the type of team we had. There were linebackers who are in the Hall of Fame, guys who played during his period of time, that he was just as good as or better."

Linebackers who played during a similar era as Gradishar who have been enshrined include Jack Lambert, Jack Ham, Robert Brazile, Harry Carson and Ted Hendricks.

As for Gradishar's stats, he was credited by the Broncos with an unofficial career total of 2,049 tackles. However, some have doubted that figure, which works out to a staggering average of 14.1 tackles per game.

"There's always a political reason," Gradishar said. "I've heard the excuses of, 'Well, you guys played in the Mountain Time Zone and nobody watched the Broncos' or, 'I didn't really have over 2,000 tackles. There's no way of that.' Or, 'You went to the Super Bowl and didn't win it.' Those are the excuses."

With Gradishar leading the Orange Crush defense, the Broncos advanced to Super Bowl XII after the 1977 season. But they were walloped 27-10 by Dallas.

Gradishar might have helped his cause had he played more than 10 seasons. But he has no regrets about his decision to retire after the 1983 campaign.

"I started thinking when I was going to retire about my eighth or ninth year," he said. "I said, 'Well, if I could get to 10.' I didn't want my name going around to sports people, the media, and the coaches saying, 'Well, Randy's getting a little slower. Randy's not playing as well as he used to.' I didn't want anybody to say, 'He should have retired last year.' It was a good decision on my part, and I've never looked back."

During his 10 seasons, Gradishar made quite an impression in Denver. He was named to the Broncos Ring of Fame in 1989.

Interestingly, that also was the first year he was snubbed by the Hall of Fame.

"We're out here in the middle of nowhere in Denver and the writers back East, I don't know how they lost Randy's number," said tackle Dave Studdard, who played for the Broncos from 1979-88.