Each NFL team’s biggest Hall of Fame omission

The Pro Football Hall of Fame is closing in on 400 members but there are still plenty of deserving players who haven't yet made it. Here is the biggest omission for every team.

Jan 28, 1990; New Orleans, LA, USA; FILE PHOTO; San Francisco 49ers running back Roger Craig (33) / USA TODAY Sports

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New York Giants: DE/DT Leonard Marshall

He was a big part of those fearsome New York Giants’ defensive units of roughly three decades ago. Spearheaded by a pair of Hall of Fame linebackers in Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson, Big Blue won Super Bowl titles and both 1986 and ‘90 thanks to a huge assist from that side of the football.

With Hall of Fame head coach Bill Parcells in charge and Bill Belichick on his staff, the Giants did some great things that decade. Along with a standout linebacker corps — which also included Carl Banks, Gary Reasons and Pepper Johnson, to name a few — it was a club of quality yet unsung defensive linemen.

One of the prime examples was relentless Leonard Marshall, a fierce competitor who came up with his share of memorable plays during his 12-year NFL career — the vast majority of that with the Giants.

A second-round pick out of LSU in 1983, the 6-foot-3, 288-pound end racked up 79.5 sacks in 10 seasons with Big Blue. In a two-year span from 1985-86 (the latter resulting in the team’s Super Bowl XXI victory over the Denver Broncos), Marshall rolled up a combined 27.5 sacks in 32 regular-season contests. He added four more QB traps in a combined five postseason games, two of those in the win over Denver in Pasadena. And in the 1990 NFC title game, he changed the history of the San Francisco 49ers with his devastating hit on quarterback Joe Montana.

He closed his NFL career with one-year stints with the Jets and Washington. Marshall may be one of those candidates who will be much more appreciated as time wears on.

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