It’s great to get honored with a Pro Bowl selection, even though most stars don’t tend to go. It’s even better to get an All-Pro selection, although there’s no dodgeball tied to that one. MVPs are how we measure greatness on a yearly basis. The Hall of Fame is the ultimate goal after winning a Super Bowl. However, the most prominent and rare honor is making the NFL’s All-Decade Team.
The NFL has been selecting All-Decade Teams since the 1920s (though those teams didn’t emerge right away). They try to name around 52 players, matching what a normal roster would look like, plus two head coaches. For the most part, the All-Decade Team is riddled with Hall of Famers. It’s a team with Tom Brady, Adrian Peterson, Calvin Johnson, and Travis Kelce. However, every team has one or two players who would shock the casual NFL fan.
1. Hunk Anderson
1920s All-Decade Team
We appreciate that the NFL honored those very early greats. The likes of Jim Thorpe, Red Grange, and George Halas deserve to be honored despite it being the early years of professional football. The first All-Decade Team honored only offensive players, so there were fewer players. Only two players on the team didn’t make the Hall of Fame, with many making the initial class in 1963. One was Lavern Dilweg, who was a three-time NFL champion. The other was Hunk Anderson, and this is one that’s having us scratch our heads, even in understanding the history behind it all.
Anderson is most well-known as the former head coach of Notre Dame, among other NCAA programs. He also coached the Chicago Bears for a few years before retiring from football in the 1940s. It all started in the 1920s, when he played offensive guard for the Chicago Bears and Cleveland Bulldogs. He was an alright player, but it’s very surprising that he was the one chosen for this honor.
Anderson only played four seasons. He only had one All-Pro in his career, and it came in his rookie season. He moved into coaching after four years, going back to Notre Dame as an assistant before jumping between programs. His best success actually came from coaching the Bears, where he went to back-to-back championship games, winning one in 1943. Even then, he only coached for four years in the NFL. It’s a strange career. Even stranger, he weighed 170 lbs. and played guard.
2. Byron White
1940s All-Decade Team
There are very few players on this list who are known more for what they did away from the gridiron, but Byron White has a long Wikipedia page, and only a small portion of it is dedicated to his football career. He was a Supreme Court Justice who was nominated by John F. Kennedy and was succeeded by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. At one point, he was the only Democratic justice on the court.
On the football field, White was pretty good for his time. His time was just INSANELY short. Nicknamed “Whizzer” on the field, White played three seasons. That’s it. He was also studying law and traveling to England to study at Oxford during these years. Football was very much not his priority, although he was great. In his three seasons, he was an All-Pro twice and second-team All-Pro once.
Whizzer led the league in rushing twice, although it was just over 500 yards. After his third season, White was called to service for World War II. He never returned to football after that. He was still considered a football “star” despite his incredibly short career, and he used that celebrity to help JFK’s political campaign. Still, only two of his seasons were in the 40s, and that team had six halfbacks and three fullbacks on it. Do we really need that many runners?
3. Larry Morris
1960s All-Decade Team
Before we get into Larry Morris as a candidate, we have to talk about the 1960s team and its structure. The way they separated positions back then was insane. There are no wide receivers. Instead, the position is separated by split ends and flankers. Also insane are the linebackers on this list. You have Dick Butkus, Ray Nitschke, and Morris. Obviously, there’s one name that doesn’t belong there.
Morris only made one All-Pro team, and he only made the second team. He’s never been the best player at his position, yet he made the All-Decade Team? Something isn’t connecting here. He was a top prospect, coming out of college as the seventh-overall pick. His Georgia Tech career was great. He helped a great Chicago Bears team. He sacrificed a lot, being one of the first former players to have his brain tested for CTE.
He’s a really good player, but is he considered one of the best linebackers of all time? He got on this team ahead of Hall of Famers Bill George, Sam Huff, and Bobby Bell. He’s a Bears great, but to put him on the All-Decade Team seems preposterous.
4. Carl Banks
1980s All-Decade Team
Carl Banks is one of the most beloved New York Giants players in the history of the franchise. He was on the other side of Lawrence Taylor, giving him the opportunity to take on open lanes since the double teams were on the other side of the defense. His overall reputation is that of the "other linebacker," which is why it's somewhat surprising that he's on this list. Don't get us wrong, Carl Banks was really good. However, was he one of the best linebackers of the 1980s?
What is strange is that Harry Carson, who was a Giants linebacker who made the Hall of Fame, isn't on this list. This was an incredible defense, led by one of the greatest defensive minds in history: Bill Belichick. Taylor is the best defensive player of all time, and Banks got to cash in on his superstardom.
Banks is a one-time All-Pro and finished his career with fewer than 40 sacks. He was on two Super Bowl-winning teams and was inducted into the Giants Ring of Honor. That’s exactly where he should be. The All-Decade Team? That seems like an honor beyond what Banks brought to the table.
5. Frank Minnifield
1980s All-Decade Team
We want to be clear that this isn't meant to disparage any of these players. Just to make the All-Decade Team, a player has to be the best of the best, but there are a few who don't fit with the conversation of their peers on the list. Frank Minnifield is a situation where a player had an incredible second half of the decade, and they got the recency bias pick. Minnifield started his career in the USFL, but he sued to get out of his contract in 1984 so he could sign in the NFL. He was successful, and he signed with the Cleveland Browns in 1984.
Minnifield made four-straight Pro Bowls, but he was only named to the All-Pro team once. This time, in 1988, he had a career-high four interceptions. For the rest of his career, he was also decently good, but was he ever the best cornerback in the league? When we think of the All-Decade Team, we'd hope that player was at least in that conversation for most of the decade. As a cornerback, he was good, but being on a bad team might have hurt him since teams could just avoid him.
This was a good player. At times, he was a really good player, but does he lift himself up to greatness? He finished his career with just 20 interceptions, and none were returned for touchdown. We're not saying that's all that matters, but it is a big part of determining greatness across eras.
6. Ronnie Lott
1990s All-Decade Team
In most metrics, Ronnie Lott is a top-10 defensive player of all time. Heck, on most lists, he should be considered top five of all time. He’s one of the most decorated athletes ever (even though he never won Defensive Player of the Year). Lott is as deserving as any player to be on the 1980s All-Decade Team. He was one of the best at any position.
The reason he’s on this list is that he’s one of the few players who made two All-Decade Teams. Many of the players who made those prestigious lists happened to be great in both decades. Lott had an… interesting 1990s. Listen, he’s an all-time great, but he wasn’t in the 90s.
He was an All-Pro in 1990 and 1991, leading the league with eight interceptions in his first year with the Raiders. Then, he wasn’t as effective in his second year with the Raiders, getting just one interception (although he did record 100 tackles). With the New York Jets (yeah, that really happened), he was a tackler but not considered one of the best safeties in the game. He didn’t even make a Pro Bowl in New Jersey. Lott tried to make a comeback with the 49ers in 1995, but he didn’t make the team. This isn’t to say he wasn’t a really good player, but we wouldn’t consider the Raiders and Jets version of Lott in the same conversation as his previous version. His place on the list kept John Lynch, Darren Woodson, Brian Dawkins, and Rodney Harrison off of it.
7. Josh Cribbs
2000s All-Decade Team
We once again reiterate that we know that everyone on the All-Decade Team is a good player. Nobody on this list is “bad,” but there are just names that stand out when we see them. Joshua Cribbs is one of those players. Maybe it’s because he was a player who spent most of his career with the Cleveland Browns, or maybe it’s because he made the first team, relegating Dante Hall to the second team. Hall made the first team for punt returners, but that pushed Devin Hester to the second team there.
In his career, Cribbs has returned the ball for more than 11,000 yards, third best all-time, but he’s actually fourth in kick return average. Terrance McGee, who played in the same decade as Cribbs, actually averaged slightly more than him. For those wondering, Cordarrelle Patterson is the one who owns the record for average.
Having a kick returner on the team makes sense. It’s a crucial part of the NFL game. Still, it brings a few interesting names to the list. Nobody truly considers Joshua Cribbs one of the elite players in the NFL. He was really good at this one aspect of the game, and for that, he probably “deserves” to be on the team, but it’s still shocking to see him.
8. Tony Richardson
2000s All-Decade Team
The 2000s All-Decade team was the last time we allowed fullbacks on the team, and we see why. Lorenzo Neal was deemed the “starter” on the team, and he was at least a name. Tony Richardson made it as the second-team selection, and we don’t know who that is. He never made a first-team All-Pro in his career, despite playing fullback, where the bar is quite low.
Getting Richardson on this team means that some great running backs didn’t make this list. Richardson had 1,700 rushing yards in his career. That was beaten 10 times in a single season during the first decade of the 21st century. We don’t have Curtis Martin, Priest Holmes, Clinton Portis, Tiki Barber, or Fred Taylor on this team. But we have Tony Richardson.
The fullback was removed from the “roster” in the 2010s All-Decade Team, and we don’t see it returning ever again. The team has changed drastically, and the fullback is now a novelty position. We can’t see them ever making it on the All-Decade team again, and players like Tony Richardson making the team show you why. We have to use these moments to celebrate greatness, and the committee that chooses this team has changed the priority positions in the past. Fullback was here for too long, and the last iteration of it brought a very odd name to the team.
9. Eric Berry
2010s All-Decade Team
We have a lot of time for Eric Berry, who has the accolades to be on this list, but when we look at the rest of the 2010s All-Decade Team, he might be the one who is furthest away from the Hall of Fame of anyone on the list. That’s surprising, as Berry is a three-time All-Pro and five-time Pro Bowler. He did some really good things with the Kansas City Chiefs, but he wasn’t there for any of the championship teams. That really hurts his case for the Hall of Fame, and it really has us questioning his place on this list.
Here’s the thing about Berry: he could not stay healthy. Those five Pro Bowls? Those were his only five healthy seasons. He played one game in a season twice, two games once, and six games once. He has five relatively healthy seasons and four incredibly unhealthy seasons. This is why Berry’s career numbers look paltry despite the talent. He also had a bout with cancer, which was one of the greatest stories in football during the 2010s. That might have hurt his value, but that also could have been why the voters put him on the list. He was given the benefit of the doubt.
Berry was a ball hawk who loved the big play. He scored five interceptions for touchdowns in his career. We love celebrating greatness, and Berry was greatness, but there’s still an argument for availability.
10. Darren Sproles
2010s All-Decade Team
Darren Sproles had a very interesting career. Was he ever considered one of the best at any one thing? Apparently, there’s a consensus that he was the best punt returner (next to Tyreek Hill) of the 2010s. Sproles was most well-known for being a jack of all trades, but he had Taysom Hill energy.
One thing that was completely shocking about this pick was that Sproles made the team at two different positions. And no, it wasn’t kick returner and punt returner. That would make sense. Instead, Sproles made it at the flex position. We get it. Voters weren’t used to players who could do everything, but we’ve seen players of this ilk do it at an elite level. Christian McCaffrey is doing it right now, and Marshall Faulk did it at the beginning of this century. Does Sproles feel like he’s even in the conversation of those two?
Sproles was fine, and he was treated as if he was fine. He never made a first-team All-Pro team, making it even more insane that he’s a two-time All-Decade Team selection. He finished his career with just over 3,000 rushing yards, over 4,000 receiving yards, and 11,000 kick return yards. The numbers are high, but none of it feels elite.