TAMPA, Fla. — While St. Louis has been without an NFL team for five years now, the glory days of the Greatest Show on Turf Rams are still fondly remembered.
There are now four members of that legendary offense enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton: Kurt Warner, Isaac Bruce, Orlando Pace and Marshall Faulk. This weekend, Torry Holt could make it five.
The former Rams receiver is up for induction as a finalist once again, along with 14 other modern-era players.
The 48-member Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee will make its final decisions on Saturday ahead of the Super Bowl, on who will make the cut this year. There is no set number of players who could be chosen, but bylaws provide for somewhere between four and eight players to get the nod.
Holt certainly has the credentials for Canton, with 13,382 yards and 74 touchdowns, but is it finally his time?
"I feel good actually. I felt good last year, I feel even better this year. Not being a first-ballot Hall of Famer, you learn the process... I feel like I'm getting closer, I really do," Holt told 5 On Your Side's Frank Cusumano in January. "Hopefully the voters really have a serious conversation about my case. I think my case takes longer than three to four minutes or six to eight minutes to talk about what I accomplished in the National Football League individually as well as team-wise... And hopefully, I'll get a few more votes this year to get in and Ike and I can have a hell of a party in Canton."
If Holt is picked, he will get to literally join his longtime teammate in Canton. Bruce was selected last year, but never got his induction day because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Forever linked, Bruce has a pretty thought-out pitch on why Holt should join him in the Hall of Fame.
"It's about impact. From an impactful standpoint, what did this player bring to the game? And hat I felt like T-Holt brought to the game was a level of consistency. He was a great wide receiver. Not just a good one. In the midst of other great players on the same offense he shared," Bruce said. "My critique about who should be going into the hall of fame and who shouldn't… My thing is always this: Did you have to prepare for this guy every week? And yes I believe Torry Holt's name was mentioned in defensive rooms of every team that we played. Was he double-teamed? T-Holt was double-teamed. You always had to have a safety over top of him. You dare not play this guy one-on-one, man-to-man because you'd be in trouble... You would do everything you could to slow this guy down. And my final thing was with all of that in front of him was he still productive? And my biggest stat with T-Holt is that he's the only guy who's ever had 1,300 yards five years in a row. Not many people can say that, I think he's the only one who can still say that."
Holt, Calvin Johnson and Reggie Wayne are the three wide receiver finalists this year, and it may be tough to visualize more than one of them getting in as part of the same class.
Quarterback Peyton Manning is also a first-time finalist for the Hall of Fame this year.