My Second Oldest Card is Suddenly a Hall of Famer

In commemoration of the league's 100th anniversary, the NFL had a special expanded Hall of Fame class for this year's induction. Twenty individuals, including coaches, players, executives, and contributors, have gotten the call to Canton in the past month.

The inductions were kicked off as Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson received the news on live TV as they worked the playoff games in January. The rest of the class consists of three contributors: Steve Sabol, Paul Tagliabue, and George Young; ten senior selection committee players: Harold Carmichael, Jimbo Covert, Bobby Dillon, Cliff Harris, Winston Hill, Alex Karras, Donnie Shell, Duke Slater, Mac Speedie, and Ed Sprinkle; and five modern-day players: Isaac Bruce, Steve Atwater, Edgerrin James, Steve Hutchinson, and Troy Polamalu.

Honestly, there were some players I had never heard of before, like Slater or Sprinkle. A couple like Hill and Harris, I had heard of, but I was surprised to hear they were elected. Speaking without actually having seen them play, I maybe would like to have seen Cliff Branch or Drew Pearson in at receiver over Harold Carmichael. But I can't claim to know as much about football's history than those voters who put them in.

The most interesting name to me was Bobby Dillon. Dillon spent the breadth of his 1952-1959 career with the Packers. I had heard of him, but I didn't know much about him. So I looked him up. It turns out, he was a really good player on some pretty bad teams. During his first seven seasons, the Pack went 26-56-2, good for a win percentage of .317. In today's terms, that equates to an average record of 5-11, almost certainly good enough for a top 10 pick in the draft. Dillon can hardly be blamed for these horrendous records, though. In those 84 games, Dillon picked off 51 passes and took five of them back for touchdowns. That's a rate of .621 interceptions per game! For reference, here is the interception rate of the top five DBs in the Hall of Fame before him (Source).

Player	Career Interception Percentage	INT/GP	Positions	Years Active
Jack Christiansen	.517	46/89	S	1951-1958
Jack Butler	.505	52/103	CB/S	1951-1959
Emlen Tunnell	.473	79/167	S	1948-1961
Dick Lane	.433	68/157	CB	1952-1965
Lem Barney	.400	56/140	CB	1967-1977

Bobby Dillon is now at the top of that list--and by a pretty wide margin, too.

Besides the fact that previously unheralded, but apparently deserving, Packer got a call to the Hall, I have another interest in Bobby Dillon. It has to do with this 1959 Topps card.

This is the last card made of his playing days, as Dillon hung up his cleats at the end of the 1959 season. But this card is the second-oldest card in my collection, and one of only 3 football cards I own from the decade my parents were born.

It was exciting to hear of another Packer's induction into the Hall of Fame. It's even more exciting to have one of my oldest cards suddenly become a Hall of Famer. Building a Hall of Fame collection of vintage cardboard by collecting cards and waiting for the player to become a Hall of Famer may not be the most efficient way to do it, but it certainly was a fun surprise.