Lee Roy Jordan would seem to have most of the bases covered for a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He had a long career after entering the NFL as a high-profile draft pick from an iconic college program, earned all-star accolades, anchored a defensive unit with an enduring nickname and played in multiple championship games with a marquee team, the Dallas Cowboys.
But if Jordan enters the Pro Football Hall of Fame, it will now be posthumously. On Saturday, the Cowboys announced Jordan had died at age 84.
A native of Excel, Jordan was a unanimous All-American selection for Alabama in 1962. He helped the Crimson Tide win coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s first national championship in 1961, and he closed his Alabama career with 31 tackles in a 17-0 victory over Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 1, 1963.
Jordan entered the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983.
The sixth player selected in the 1963 NFL Draft, Jordan spent his entire 14 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys. Jordan earned Pro Bowl recognition in 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973 and 1974 as the middle linebacker for the Doomsday Defense.
When Jordan retired after the 1976 season, only one player in NFL history had appeared in more playoff games than he had. His 19 were exceeded only by the 20 of quarterback/kicker George Blanda, who played for 26 seasons.
Jordan’s 19 playoff games included the fifth, sixth and 10th Super Bowls, and he also played in two NFL championship games before the league’s Super Bowl era. The Cowboys defeated the Miami Dolphins 24-3 in Super Bowl VI on Jan. 16, 1972, with Jordan at middle linebacker for Dallas’ first NFL championship. And probably more famously, Jordan played in the Ice Bowl.
But Jordan has been a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s annual selections once.
Of the modern-era finalists for the Class of 1988, Jordan is the only one not enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Fred Biletnikoff, Mike Ditka, Jack Ham and Alan Page earned election that year. While Buck Buchanan from Parker High School, Bob Griese, Leroy Kelly, Tom Mack, Art Shell and Lynn Swann didn’t make the cut with the Class of 1988, they eventually were elected.
From the Class of 1970, the first with the finalist format, through the Class of 2000, 140 players reached finalist status as modern-era nominees (or the equivalent. The senior-nominee process started with the Class of 1972).
Of those 140 players, 133 are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Besides Jordan, the other six players on the outside are:
Quarterback Ken Anderson
Quarterback Charlie Conerly
Defensive end L.C. Greenwood
Defensive lineman Rosey Grier
Defensive tackle Gene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb
Offensive tackle Jim Tyrer
Like Jordan, Grier was a modern-era finalist once. Anderson, Lipscomb and Tyrer were finalists twice apiece, Greenwood six times and Conerly 7 times.
Pro Football Reference assigns Jordan a Hall of Fame monitor score of 58.05. The Hall of Fame monitor is a metric based on career statistics and accolades designed to estimate a player’s chances of reaching the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Jordan’s score is 19th among the NFL’s inside linebackers. Thirteen of the 18 inside linebackers with higher scores than Jordan are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. One with a lower score, Sam Mills, also is enshrined.
The five inside linebackers with higher scores than Jordan who are not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame include Bobby Wagner, who is still playing; Luke Kuechly, who became eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the Class of 2025; NaVorro Bowman, Hardy Nickerson and Karl Mecklenburg.
Among the NFL’s inside linebackers, only three were starters for more seasons than Jordan’s 13, and his 32 interceptions are not only the most for any Alabama alumnus, but tied for the most at the position with Pro Football Hall of Famer Nick Buoniconti.
One thing would seem to be missing from Jordan’s Hall of Fame résumé: He was never selected as a first-team All-Pro by The Associated Press (although he was on the Pro Football Writers of America’s All-NFL team in 1973).
But inside linebacker Harry Carson entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the Class of 2006 without being chosen first-team All-Pro by the AP.
Jordan reached finalist status in his sixth season of eligibility for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Jordan became eligible for senior consideration with the Class of 2002. Players move from the modern-era category to the senior process after 25 seasons have elapsed since their final NFL game.
An opportunity for players in Jordan’s situation arrived with the Class of 2020. To address a perceived backlog of worthy candidates, the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Board of Trustees voted to expand the Class of 2020 to include up to 10 senior players in conjunction with the NFL’s celebration of its centennial season.
But Jordan was not among the 20 senior finalists for the Class of 2020.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame adopted a new process for picking the senior nominees annually starting with the Class of 2025. For that class, a nomination list of 182 players was reduced to 60 by the Seniors Screening Committee, a group that included Jordan. The nine-member Seniors Blue-Ribbon Committee reduced those 60 to 31 (the top 25 and ties), a process that eliminated Jordan.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at@AMarkG1.
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