There has been this wave of emotion with Patrick Peterson’s departure. One of them is thinking he’s going to be in the HOF.
I’m gonna stop this train before it even leaves the station. There is absolutely no way Patrick Peterson will or should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Maybe in the Cardinals ring of honor, yes. But thinking he was a guy who changed the game, or was such a big threat that teams didn’t really fear him is kind of laughable. He was respected, but he never got a Darelle Revis-like treatment where teams didn’t completely throw to the opposite side of the field.
Peterson only sits at 28 career interceptions. And that’s roughly halfway to the person who is tied for 19th on the top 20 of interceptions all time- and that’s Charles Woodson who has 55. Peterson also hasn’t had more than 3 interceptions in a season since 2012.
There’s also all the other countless times that Russell Wilson and all of his receivers just burned Peterson as well. Not to mention Peterson also let the game go to overtime in the 2015 divisional round against the Packers. If you are what you say you are, you at least make a play on that ball, like Richard Sherman did in the 2013 NFC Championship vs. San Francisco.
I also don’t know of any Hall of famer at the cornerback position who also got put in the Hall of Fame even though he tested positive for PEDs. And I know what you might say, “Well Ray Lewis got in and he had that whole murder drama!”. That’s a totally different topic.
It’s not even close for Peterson to get into the Hall of Fame. Unless his career takes off in Minnesota and he channels his inner Paul Krause, then all you can expect is a ring of honor induction. Pro football reference lists the following for where Pearson ranks on their “Hall of Fame radar”.
"PFR HOF Monitor: 78.95 (33rd among DB, average HOF DB is 105.81)"
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Especially after how the last two years went for Peterson in terms of quality of play, that was what really broke his case. As I said in my previous article, good luck Patrick, but it was time to move on.