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Voters for the Pro Football Hall of Fame are going to have a hard decision to make in five years, because that is when Terrell Davis will become eligible. His career, which officially (and sadly) ended yesterday, was a short one — but it was still stunningly productive: in seven seasons, he rushed for 7,607 yards and sixty touchdowns. Those are low numbers, and they may keep him out of the Hall of Fame — but as far as I am concerned, he belongs there. He is one of only four running backs in history to rush for 2000 yards in a single season, and more impressively he did it for a team that went on to win the Super Bowl (the 1998 Broncos). That may not seem like much, but it is often the case that the leading rusher in the NFL comes from a team that is only suited to the run; in fact, it wasn’t until 1993 that the team with the NFL’s leading rusher even made it to the Super Bowl (the Cowboys, who won the game). And the year before Davis’s 2000-yard season, he was merely the Super Bowl MVP when he put up 157 yards and three touchdowns against the Packers (a game in which he famously missed part of the second quarter due to a migraine headache). I’m not a Broncos fan, but Terrell Davis was a magnificent player who — like baseball’s Kirby Puckett — was, for a time, the heart-and-soul of a championship club (with all due respect to John Elway). He’ll be missed.

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