Congratulations to LeRoy Butler for finally getting into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Butler is a member of the 1990s All-Decade team (and the last position player to get in), a Super Bowl Champion, a 4-time Pro Bowler and All-Pro, and the creator of the Lambeau Leap. It took far, far longer than it should have for this to happen.
Safeties are, in this writer’s opinion, underrated in the grand scheme of football defenses. The burgeoning NFL analytics movement holds the safety as one of the lesser defensive positions, and many Hall of Fame safeties of yore (and a few of more recent vintage like John Lynch) were primarily concussion machines, building their resume on big hits that wouldn’t be allowed today.