HOUSTON -- Former Tennessee Titans center Kevin Mawae advanced from the semifinalist field of 15 to the final 10 for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but was not among the final five elected to be enshrined.
The result for the first year in which Mawae made the semifinals is a positive, and it bodes well for his potential to eventually wear a gold jacket and model for a bronze bust, signaling enshrinement in the museum in Canton, Ohio.
Four offensive linemen were in the final 15, and it’s apparent the 48 selectors -- of which I am one -- were split on them. Joe Jacoby of Washington and Alan Faneca, who played the bulk of his career in Pittsburgh, didn’t make the cut-down from 15 to 10.
Tony Boselli, the first Hall of Fame contender from the Jacksonville Jaguars, advanced to the final 10, but like Mawae failed to make the final five.
Once determined, the final five players have an up-or-down vote, and if they get 80 percent they make the Hall.
Per the Elias Sports Bureau: Mawae played in 90 regular-season games that produced at least one 100-yard rusher. That's the most in NFL history among O-linemen. Hall of Famer Jackie Slater and Tom Nalen had 85 each, while old-timers Lou Groza and Gene Hickerson didn’t get to 85.
Mawae got incredible reviews from coaches and teammates.
“He would jump-hook guys, do some stuff that, at the coaches' seminar of ideal line play, they’d be like, ‘Oh gosh, that’s just blasphemy,'” said Bruce Matthews, the Oilers/Titans Hall of Fame lineman. “He was a results guy.
"You wouldn’t coach it that way. You would say, 'This is graduate-school offensive-line mindset, when you have such super-confidence in your skills you can go off the radar and do your own thing.”
Defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth, who battled Mawae in games and practices, told me, “Mawae was pretty much the Tom Brady of offensive linemen; I can’t name a center that’s better than him.”
In a Friday interview with The Midday 180 on Nashville's WGFX-FM, Mawae was particularly surprised by the huge compliment from Haynesworth.
Steve Hutchinson, whom we might be talking about here next year, said Mawae prompted other teams to try things they couldn’t do.
“Mawae was revolutionary,” he said. “During my time in the league, I saw a lot of centers pulling. At some point, they got to be 290-295 [pounds] as opposed to 275-280. I saw a lot of teams scheming to pull the center, who couldn’t do it. It’s a monkey-see, monkey-do league. Kevin was the only guy who could consistently do that effectively.”
Hall of Famer Mike Munchak, the offensive line coach in Pittsburgh, admired Mawae from afar before coaching him from 2006-09 with the Titans.
“He had solutions all the time,” Munchak said. "...He’d always find a way to overcome something he shouldn’t be able to. Almost like the MacGyver of football, he was going to find a way.”
