Ty Law Elected to the Patriots Hall of Fame
Patriots.com - The New England Patriots announced today that Ty Law has been voted by the fans as the 22nd person to enter the Patriots Hall of Fame… “Ty Law was one of the greatest players in franchise history and one of the premier corners in the NFL during his Patriots career,” said Patriots Chairman and CEO Robert Kraft. “The fans have helped validate that with this year’s hall of fame selection. We have had an incredible run of success and the building blocks started with players like Ty. He was an important part of three Super Bowl championship teams. It will be an honor to bring Ty back to celebrate his career as he takes his rightful place in our team’s hall of fame.”… The three finalists were Law, Raymond Clayborn and head coach Bill Parcells. Fans had a month to vote on Patriots.com for the candidate they believed was most deserving of hall of fame consideration.
Kudos to Pats fans for getting it right once again. Not to take anything away from the other candidates. Clayborn was one of the best DBs of his era and a Special Teams monster. And Prcells, in spite of his .500 record in New England, that ugly 3rd season where he got fat and complacent and the ugly divorce in ’96, was a transformational figure who did nothing less than making the franchise legitimate just by walking into the building his first day on the job. But neither of them was Ty Law. They weren’t as good for as long as Law was. I could sit here and run down his list of accomplishments and great clutch plays at huge moments in big games (his other worldly 3 interception performance in the 2003 Divisional Playoff when he was actually gesturing to where Peyton Manning was going to throw it before picking him off, his Pick-6 off Kurt Warner in the Super Bowl, etc, etc) but even I couldn’t write a blog that long. Instead I’ll just sum up his career this way: He was one of those guys who was so good, the sport changed the rules to stop him. It was after he mauled the Colts finesse receivers and shut down their offense for the second straight playoffs in ’04, Indy got the Competition Committee to basically outlaw defending passes. It was the only way they were ever going to defeat the Pats as long as Law was in their secondary, ushered in the Arena League Era in the NFL and was basically the end of football as we knew it. If you want a history lesson, the league did something similar to stop Mel Blount back in the late ’70s when they implemented the 5-yard Chuck rule, and for that Blount is considered maybe the best corner of all time. I’m not putting Law in his class, but as far as the Patriots go, he’s the best defensive back they ever had. So well done, New England. Justice is served. @JerryThornton1
PS. First Troy Brown gets in the Patriots Hall, now Ty Law. Two down, one to go:
