Patriots Hall of Fame: Wilfork goes down as one of franchise's greatest winners

May 19—Plenty of memories were conjured up this week as Vince Wilfork earned the vote of New England football fans to be the next inductee to the Patriots Hall of Fame.

Wilfork was an absolute menace, a five-time Pro Bowler and two-time Super Bowl champ.

Wilfork is a legendary person as well as a transcendent athlete. Late colleague Michael Muldoon would first want me to point out that Wilfork threw the shot an unbelievable 68 feet at Santaluces Community High School in Boynton Beach, Fla.

As much of a pleasure as it was to watch Wilfork dominate on the field or to talk football with him in the locker room, it was during the week leading up to Super Bowl 49 in Phoenix that my favorite Wilfork moment occurred. That was the win over Seattle by the way.

We were in the final minutes in the last media session of the week, and even the most dogged reporters had run out of things to write about.

Knowing Wilfork and I shared a passion for horse racing, I tossed out an off-the-cuff remark, asking Vince if his wife, Bianca, was OK with him dipping into the business of owning horses. It can be expensive, you know.

We chuckled for a second, then he told me that he had a pretty good-looking young horse making its first career start in the next week at the New Orleans Fair Grounds.

Make sure you play it, he told me. The horse galloped at 7-to-2, rolling to the easy win.

I will always be grateful. He's a giving person, almost to a fault. So congrats, Vince. Good things to good people.

MORE ON VINCE

It was interesting to see Wilfork's reaction to the induction notice to Patriots Hall, calling himself the greatest to ever play the position.

There are folks in Pittsburgh, who might tell you that Wilfork wasn't even the best AFC nose guard of the era.

It you look at the careers of Steelers' sensational big man, Casey Hampton, and the Patriots' Wilfork, they are extremely similar.

Each earned trips to five Pro Bowls and each won a pair of Super Bowls.

Who was the better player? It's probably impossible to definitively say.

I can state without a shadow of a doubt that it would be an egregious error if both guys weren't elected to the real HOF in Ohio.

They are equally deserving and hopefully they are honored soon.

AND FINALLY

When will the folks in Foxborough just make the inevitable move and go with a one-time wholesale induction of the handful of guys who are waiting to get in and deserve to be there?

It's not just the other two finalists this year, Mike Vrabel and Logan Mankins.

Bill Parcells needs to be in. Wes Welker? Certainly. Adam Vinatieri? Absolutely.

It's time to clear the deck, so when the rapid-fire entries of Julian Edelman, Rob Gronkowski and, of course, Tom Brady, happen, the deck will definitely be cleared for them.