It's not too late to put 'Bullet' Bob in the Hall

By Ray Buck
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Tom Landry hated hyperbole.

He was a proper man who kept his fedora on his head, his emotions in check and his words reined in.

When he met with the media, very few adjectives junked up his assessments of players or games or seasons in progress.

He waited until after he had retired to tell us just how really big a deal winning Super Bowl VI was for his Dallas Cowboys, who had lost the "big game” five years in a row (Green Bay twice, Cleveland twice and Baltimore in SB V).

So I'm just guessing that Landry hated himself for getting all wordy after a Sept. 11, 1965, preseason game in which rookie "Bullet” Bob Hayes made an unbelievable TD catch.

It was the preseason finale: Cowboys-Bears at Skelly Stadium in Tulsa. Hayes exploded off the line of scrimmage like the "World's Fastest Human” he was, raced under an overthrown ball … and caught it in stride.

The Chicago secondary gave up on the play; Hayes did not.

Landry later tried to describe what he had just seen with words such as "rare” and "revolutionary.” Hayes could make even Landry gush.

Now fast-forward.

Pro Football Hall of Fame voters today — most of whom never covered Hayes or the NFL from 1965-74 — continue to keep Hayes locked out of Canton, Ohio. He's not even on the HOF ballot anymore.

There's an old saying that ignorance is bliss.

Well, it's also annoying.

Imagine a tactical coach like Landry flushed with pressure to come up with ways to use Hayes' world-class speed in the team's multiple offense, without wasting a moment of time or an ounce of talent.

Now fast-forward.

Hall of Fame voters can't get it right even when they almost do.

They met at the Houston Super Bowl to decide the Class of 2004, and Hayes made it into the "final six” after two rounds of voting.

There was room for all six candidates to be enshrined, mind you. It required 80-percent approval on one last ballot, sort of an "are you sure you want to save this file?”

A perfunctory "yes” from at least 32 (of 39) voters in the room would have been enough.

No problem, right? This was "Bullet” Bob Hayes, who once turned Landry's head and forced opposing defenses to devise zone coverages in an attempt to corral him.

Well, four HOF candidates received the necessary votes to enter the Class of ‘04. Only Hayes and ex-Dallas teammate Rayfield Wright were left out in the cold (the latter got in two years later).

Hayes, who died in September 2002, has never come closer than that '04 HOF short list.

So why aren't Hall of Fame voters as blown away by "Bullet” Bob Hayes as Landry was 43 years ago?

Maybe they didn't see what Landry saw.

It's still possible for Hayes to make it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

But it's now up to the Veterans Committee to make him a finalist so that his name can make it onto another ballot to be put to another Super Bowl Eve vote.