Most wide receivers aren’t known for their brute strength. All they need to do is catch the ball and run a route while avoiding the defensive team. But Anquan Boldin was something else. He had enough power to prevent the defense from taking the ball away from him. Yet, it’s seemingly not enough for the front office and Pro Football Hall of Fame voters to induct him in the Hall of Fame.
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On The Dan Patrick Show, the host noted that Boldin was a tough man. He looked at Hines Ward and Boldin still out of the Hall of Fame, and claimed that it’s getting tougher and tougher for them to get inducted. Former Arizona Cardinals Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner agreed with Patrick. After all, with more legendary players retiring, Boldin’s case continues to get weaker.
“No doubt. And I think with the new rules where you have to get a certain amount of the votes, and not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but when you have a Steve Smith and a Reggie Wayne and a Torry Holt,” Warner told Patrick. “Look at Torry, he’s an all-decade player, and he can’t get into the Hall of Fame.
“It makes no sense to me. But if you have all these voters going, ‘Well, I think Reggie was a little better than Steve, and Steve was a little better than Torry, and Torry was like, you start axing people off and you can’t get that required number of votes. Even though you look at those guys and you can make an argument that all of them belong in there. To me, Tory is a no-brainer. But he continues to wait and it’s hard for me to figure out exactly why.”
Boldin spent 14 seasons in the NFL and recorded 1,076 receptions for 13,779 yards and scored 82 touchdowns. He also rushed for 229 yards in 42 attempts to score one touchdown. It’s worth noting that in seven seasons, he recorded four-digits in receiving yards. However, he lacked speed and agility that others like Terry Owens had.
Despite that, Boldin was able to make a difference. Even though he didn’t stay with a single team, he was able to become the best receiver wherever he played (Arizona, San Francisco, Baltimore). That’s what made Warner stand in favor of Boldin’s induction into the Hall of Fame back in 2017. Even today, Warner’s argument remains the same.
“I even think when we were with the Cardinals when he was so great for us, they were always looking and going,” Warner said. “We think we can replace Anquan because he’s not that fast. Yet, everywhere he went, from Arizona to Baltimore to San Francisco, was the top receiver, lead receiver, every single time.”
Furthermore, Warner compared Boldin to Larry Fitzgerald. Well, in a hypothetical situation where Warner had to put the ball in someone’s hand, he claimed that he’d put it in Boldin’s hands instead of Fitzgerald’s. While Fitzgerald was a great receiver, Boldin, according to Warner, was simply better when it came to making plays.
“The point being is that the competitor that Anquan Boldin was and how great he was at making the play in the moment, is what I think people continually miss, because they might look at the physical skill and say, ‘Ah, it wasn’t quite what we think we see a Hall of Famer,’” Warner went on. “Although his production and the way he played the game was as good as anybody I was around.”
The Hall of Fame’s stringent voting rules have created a brutal logjam at wide receiver. But Warner knows Boldin’s tape speaks louder than any 40-yard dash time. With nearly 14,000 career yards and unmatched physical toughness, Boldin’s wait for Canton is already long overdue.