INDIANAPOLIS — Chris Doleman is not one of the four Pro Football Hall of Fame finalists who won a Super Bowl. He doesn’t believe that should affect his chances of being elected to the shrine.
Nor does Troy Aikman.
Doleman terrorized quarterbacks and running backs as a defensive end for the Vikings, Falcons and 49ers for 15 seasons. He led the NFL in sacks in 1989 with 21 on his way to 150½ sacks, fourth all time when he retired.
Unlike Charles Haley, Bill Parcells, Jerome Bettis and Ed DeBartolo Jr. among the 17 finalists who will learn today if they are voted into the hall, Doleman never got to the NFL’s biggest stage.
“Yes, it can hurt me and it’s unfair, absolutely,” Doleman said Friday. “I’d like to think the voters look at this and say, ‘Let’s take the Super Bowl out of it.’ These guys were such great players that if you placed them on that particular team, would it have won the Super Bowl? Can you take a Super Bowl player and put him on a team I played on, and is he a difference maker?”
As Doleman was reflecting on his career, Aikman walked by. Asked how often Doleman put him on his back, he winced and said: “Too many times. More than I care to remember. He was quite a player.”
Doleman is one of four defensive players known for his ability to knock down quarterbacks who made the final list. Haley is the only player to win five Super Bowls: two with the 49ers and three with Dallas. Cortez Kennedy spent his entire 11-season career with Seattle, while Kevin Greene, one of the original hybrid linebacker-ends, played for four teams in his 15 pro seasons.
“It’s a great group,” said Doleman, who along with Reggie White and Bruce Smith was considered the class of pass rushers for several seasons. Indeed, Doleman might have been the prototype for the pass-rushing 4-3 end of today’s game: powerful but agile, able to rush with speed or overwhelm a blocker with strength.
“I would have players and coaches telling me their teams were trying to get people to copy what I was doing,” Doleman said.
No expansion imminent for NFL
Sorry, Los Angeles. The only NFL expansion happening anytime soon is to next season’s schedule of Thursday night games.
During his annual Super Bowl news conference, commissioner Roger Goodell said there hasn’t been any discussion about adding to the league’s 32 teams, and indicated he’s not too keen about the idea of shifting a franchise, either.
“We have not talked about expansion in the league at all. It has not been on our agenda. It is not something we’ve focused on with our membership. And I don’t see that in the foreseeable future,” Goodell said. “We want to keep our teams where they are. We believe that’s healthier for the league in the long term. We’re working to get stadiums built and make sure we do whatever we can to make sure those teams are successful in those communities.”
Los Angeles, the second-largest market in the U.S., has been without an NFL team since the Rams and Raiders both left after the 1994 season.
“We would like to be back in Los Angeles, if we can do it correctly,” Goodell said. “There are a lot of issues that have to be balanced there.”
He announced that every club will appear on prime-time TV in 2012, thanks in part to a new slate of Thursday games that now will be scheduled from Week 2 through Week 15. NBC will air a game on Thanksgiving night; the other 12 Thursdays will go on the NFL Network, which aired eight games in 2011.
Former lineman Vollers sent to prison
DALLAS — Former Cowboys and Colts offensive lineman Kurt Vollers has been sentenced to 2½ years in federal prison after pleading guilty to a federal charge of conspiracy to distribute marijuana.
