25 Young Players That Have The Best Chances of Reaching The Hall of Fame

Aug 2, 2013; Canton, OH, USA; General view of the busts of enshrinees at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The ultimate honor an NFL player can receive is a bust in Canton.

Yeah, you play to win the Super Bowl and other awards a nice, but nothing compares to that gold jacket. Ask any Hall of Fame player and they’ll tell you that the Hall of Fame brotherhood, which is under 300 players all-time, is the greatest honor they’ve ever received. So which current NFL stars have a chance to make it into the Hall? Well there is certainly a handful, but which current young NFL stars have a chance to make it? The answer to that question is slightly different.

‘Young’ is a subjective word so I decided to define young as any player that is age 27 or younger. This is because no one under the age of 27 has built a rock-solid Hall of Fame career — although some are well on their way. Likewise, no player over the age of 27 is going to suddenly begin to play at an elite level out of nowhere. That is why I chose age 27 as the cut-off for consideration of this list.

Aug 1, 2014; Canton, OH, USA; Enshrinees pose at the 2014 Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinees gold jacket dinner at Canton Memorial Civic Center. From left: Ray Guy and Claude Humphrey and Derrick Brooks and Walter Jones and Andre Reed and Aeneas Williams and Michael Strahan. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

What makes a player Hall of Fame caliber? Is it rings, statistics, awards, records or a combination of all of those things? I’d say yes and no. Yes, those things certainly help, but no it’s not that simple. A player doesn’t make the Hall of Fame for simply hitting a certain statistic or winning a certain number of championships.

My interpretation of what makes a player a Hall of Fame inductee is how well they dominated their peers. Explanation: for a 3-5 span were they considered the best player, or arguably the best player, at their position? Did they also put together a competitive career with individual success at both ends of a 10-year period? If you can easily answer yes to both of those questions then that player is worthy of Hall of Fame inclusion. That is how I view the Hall of Fame anyway, but like with everything there are always exceptions.

Note: Will all of these 25 players make the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Absolutely not. In fact most will not, but these are the 25 players that have the best chance to get there, at this point in time.

Did any of your favorite young superstars make the list?