Tony Dungy will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year in his second year of eligibility. The former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts head coach joins a class that consists of Brett Favre, Ken Stabler, Marvin Harrison, Kevin Greene, Orlando Pace, Eddie Debartolo Jr. and Dick Stanfel/
Former Buccaneer John Lynch was not inducted, despite making it among the finalists consistently the past few years. Dungy will join Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp and the late, great Lee Roy Selmon as Hall of Famers who spent a significant part of their career with the Bucs.
The former coach is best known to the NFL public for winning a Super Bowl with Peyton Manning following the 2006 season, but Bucs fans will known him as the man who brought the team to national relevance for arguably the first time in the team's history. He turned a perennial loser, a team that had lost double-digit games for twelve straight seasons, and turned them into a consistent playoff contender in just a single year.
Dungy built the Tampa 2 defense, which left a huge mark on the NFL -- the Carolina Panthers took an evolved version of that to the Super Bowl this year. He used that defense to go 54-42 in Tampa, and 2-4 in the playoffs. His high point with the Bucs came in 1999, when the Bucs held one of the best offenses in NFL history to just 11 points in the NFC Championship. Unfortunately, his offense and the refs let Dungy down and they couldn't beat the St. Louis Rams.
The Bucs fired Tony Dungy in 2001 after two early exits from the playoffs, and the Colts hired him to run the team and especially the defense, to complement Peyton Manning. That led to a Super Bowl win and an 85-27 record with the Colts, as well as a 7-6 record in the playoffs with that team.
That Lynch has not been inducted yet is somewhat amazing, looking at his accolades. He made the Pro Bowl a whopping nine times, was named a first-team All-Pro three times and a second-team All-Pro once, won a Super Bowl, two different Man of the Year awards and was even named Defensive Back of the Year in 2000 by NFL Alumni. But Lynch wasn't the most important player on the Bucs' Super Bowl team, and with Derrick Brooks and Warren Sapp in the Hall of Fame the road became a little harder for him. He made it into the top 10, according to Mike Klis of Denver's 9News, which means he's at least getting closer to making it in.
Just talked to all 3 Broncos HOF finalists-none elected BUT Terrell Davis John Lynch make it inside Top 10-set up for future #9news #9news
— Mike Klis (@MikeKlis) February 7, 2016