After years of curious silence, Mark Clayton now at forefront of a Hall of Fame campaign
This phone call in the middle of April comes at a time the Miami Dolphins and most of their fans are thinking about the upcoming draft and the team’s future. But the voice on the other end of the line is from the past. And it carries us back to days when things were better.
When the Dolphins were dynamic on offense.
When greatness on the field and the sideline were a reality rather than a hope.
Mark Clayton is calling, and for the first time in years the former Dolphins receiver and I are talking about football. And for the first time ever he’s the one asking the questions.
“I’d like to know why you think I’m not in the Hall of Fame?” he asks.
Clayton just turned 60, and his friends and family have been asking each other this question for years. Now, after much prodding from former teammate Mark Higgs, who suggested this call, Clayton is looking to me for the answer.
And let me share with you what I told him: I don’t know why Mark Clayton isn’t in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He retired after the 1993 season and had 25 years to be considered as a modern-era nominee. But best I can tell, Clayton never was considered beyond the Hall’s annual preliminary list of nominees during that time. And because he never got traction while on that initial list during those two-and-a-half decades, Clayton’s name dropped off the list of eligible nominees after 2017.
So if Clayton is ever to be considered for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, it will have to happen through the work of the Hall’s Senior Committee — a venerable group of nine men who meet every summer to consider yesteryear’s greatest players, all of whom fell through the proverbial cracks of the Hall’s modern-era vetting process.
Those nine Senior Committee members, who include former NFL executive Bill Polian and some of the most veteran and knowledgeable people in professional football journalism, are going to have to save a Clayton Hall of Fame candidacy that, frankly, has never really existed.
Until now.
Hall of Famers take note of Clayton
Clayton’s Hall of Fame merits are gaining traction now for the first time because, well, Hall of Famers are paying attention.
It’s not the media that’s mounting a campaign on Clayton’s behalf, although this column is reporting on it. It’s not Clayton’s career numbers that are suddenly improving, because they have circled unchanged in the same orbit as other Hall of Famers for decades.
It’s former players who are making the point Clayton belongs in the Hall of Fame.
Ronnie Lott is not just a former player but arguably one of the greatest to put on an NFL uniform. He is a Hall of Famer. He practiced and played against Hall of Famers while winning four Super Bowls. And this is what he thinks of Clayton:
“I believe Mark deserves to be in,” Lott says. “I believe there are certain boxes a Hall of Fame receiver has to check. It starts with you got to have all the ingredients. Clayton had that. And your stats have to be in the same vein as the other receivers that are a part of it.
“And knowing that his statistics are in the vein of Drew Pearson and Lynn Swann and Michael Irvin and many of the great receivers, that tells me Mark Clayton belongs.”
If we’re talking about ingredients, former Patriots and Raiders cornerback Mike Haynes, a 1999 Hall of Fame inductee, knows which ones Clayton possessed. Because Haynes studied, then matched up against Clayton during some classic battles between he and teammate Lester Hayes against Clayton and Mark Duper in the 1980s.
“He had a lot of unique releases, he could stop on a dime, he was a great leaper, and he could not be stopped,” Haynes says. “Everything you’d like to see in a great receiver, he had, including a Hall of Fame quarterback and another great receiver on the other side.
“Mark Clayton was a force to be reckoned with. How can anybody have watched him play and not think that he belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame?”
It’s not just Hall of Fame defensive backs that believe Clayton authored a Hall-of-Fame career. Former Rams and Colts running back Eric Dickerson, another 1999 Hall of Fame inductee and a member of the NFL 100th anniversary team, watched Clayton from the sideline.
“I know all receivers are measured against Jerry Rice,” Dickerson says. “I think Mark and Jerry were different kinds of players. When I think of Mark Clayton, I think of, boom, big play. Big play — like 70- or 80-yard passes. I know we played them at Anaheim Stadium in 1986. Clayton was the receiver we wanted to limit that day. He caught four passes for 84 yards and a touchdown. The touchdown was a 43-yard score.
“Every guy is an individual, and I don’t like to compare guys to other guys and say he was Jerry Rice or T.O. [Terrell Owens] because they all have their own identity. But Clayton is in that group, in my opinion.
“He’s a Hall of Famer in my mind.”
Dickerson, Lott and Haynes are so convinced Clayton belongs in the Hall of Fame, they’re sending the Senior Committee members letters to plead for a sober consideration of facts on Clayton’s behalf.
They’re not alone.
A group of about half a dozen other players also plan to send a group letter to the Senior Committee members outlining reasons they believe Clayton should be considered as their nominee this year. This group consists of Hall of Famers Marcus Allen, Andre Reed and Richard Dent, as well as Raymond Clayborn, and Everson Walls.
Oh, yes, Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino will also be signing on to the group letter.
“I’ll say this about all players that are in the Hall of Fame and some who should be,” Dickerson says, “when you see a guy’s name and you played against that guy, we as players know who we played. I know writers have opinions and coaches have opinions but neither of them played against Hall of Famers.
“Mark was a guy I played against and watched up close in games our teams played. And he was a game-changer. You had to game plan for him. There are certain guys you don’t have to game plan for. But Mark Clayton was a guy we worried about.”
A risky approach
This letter-writing campaign on Clayton’s behalf by some of the biggest names to ever grace a football field is not without risk.
What if members of the Senior Committee disagree? What if they don’t appreciate former players, even those who played the game at the highest level, giving their opinions?
Clayton and his wife Bridget Clayton, who have been married 21 years, considered this before they reached out. They voiced concerns during our conversations. And deciding to go forward was difficult, especially for Clayton, because he didn’t want to be somehow portrayed as seeking attention for himself.
But it’s not just that.
“This is people doing something for him, and it’s very hard for him to accept,” Bridget Clayton says. “But I think if these players are speaking up, [the Senior Committee] will know that these people are holding them sort of accountable. Before now, nobody was saying anything.
“So if all of these guys are saying, ‘Hey, this guy should be in,’ then maybe the committee will start to consider that he should be in.”
And make no mistake, Clayton believes he belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But not because other people are finally starting to say it aloud.
“I believe I’m a Hall of Famer based on the work I put into it and the skills I possessed on the field,” Clayton says. “I produced. I was very productive. I think I was a very good teammate. I was all about winning and, shoot man, the only thing you can go off of when you take a look at everything else is the numbers.
“My numbers are in line with all the rest of those guys already in there. If numbers speak for themselves then I shouldn’t have to say anything. My numbers speak for me loud and clear.”
Mark Clayton’s numbers tell the tale
It has been 28 years since Clayton last played an NFL game. But his statistics have withstood the test of time.
▪ Clayton caught 84 touchdown passes during his career. That ties him for 19th in NFL history. His 84 TD catches are as many or more than 18 of the 31 wide receivers in the Hall of Fame.
▪ Clayton’s career average of 15.4 yards per reception is higher than 15 of the 31 wide receivers in the Hall of Fame. His 582 receptions are more than 12 Hall of Fame wide receivers. His 8,974 receiving yards are more than 11 Hall of Fame wide receivers.
▪ Clayton led the NFL in touchdown receptions in 1984 and 1988. Only 10 of the 31 wide receivers in the Hall of Fame led the league in touchdown receptions multiple times.
Former Dallas Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson was elected to the Hall of Fame at the last selectors’ meeting in January as a Senior Committee finalist.
Clayton had more career catches than Pearson (582 to 489). Clayton had more career receiving yards than Pearson (8,974 to 7,822). And Clayton had more touchdown receptions than Pearson (84 to 48).
Clayton didn’t post the crazy numbers some receivers are putting up lately. But it must be noted Clayton compiled his statistics during an era much different than today. No less than eight rules changes or clarifications have been made since 1993 — Clayton’s final season — that effectively opened up the passing game for offenses.
Oh, yes, and this:
Clayton set professional football’s single-season touchdown catch record with 18 in 1984, breaking the mark of 17 set by the AFL’s Bill Groman in 1961 and the NFL’s Don Hutson and Elroy Hirsch before that.
Since Clayton caught that 18th TD pass of the 1984 season — a 63-yard score with 51 seconds to play to help beat Dallas, 28-21, in the season finale — the only receivers who have scored more TDs in a season are Jerry Rice and Randy Moss. Both are first-ballot Hall of Famers.
“During the years he was in the NFL, Mark Clayton caught 84 touchdown passes,” Lott says. “Only Jerry Rice, a man I practiced against every day and know intimately why he’s in the Hall of Fame, had more.
“We’re saying here’s the best of all the guys to ever play, Jerry Rice. He’s in the Hall of Fame. And you have the next guy right behind him during their days in the NFL. That’s a nugget and one that definitely has to be noted. Yet, Mark Clayton isn’t in the Hall of Fame.”
Clayton knows how to fight
During the last few weeks of conversations with Clayton, he has come to understand that great players rallying to his cause may not immediately pay a dividend for him this year. There is, in other words, no guarantee he will suddenly be voted into the Hall of Fame after years of silence on the subject.
“We’re in it to win it,” Bridget Clayton says. “Now, we’re in it. And if it doesn’t work this time, we’re going to keep trying.”
In that regard this might become something of an annual battle. And that’s probably fine because Clayton is very familiar with winning ongoing battles against tougher opponents than this.
Consider:
“I had a battle with prostate cancer,” Clayton shares publicly for the first time. “Now I’m cancer-free.”
In October of 2019, Clayton went for his routine medical exam. Except this exam didn’t return routine results.
“I was just getting my physicals every year,” Clayton says, “and, you know, my primary care doctor saw that my blood levels were different. My [prostate-specific antigen] numbers were different than they had been. So I go to a urologist and get a biopsy and they tell me I had prostate cancer.”
That led Clayton to call Haynes, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer at age 55 and is now a prostate cancer awareness spokesman.
“I called him and he hooked me up with his people,” Clayton says. “Pretty soon I flew out to San Diego and had the surgery.”
It was a trying time for the Claytons. They’ve lived in Houston since 2000 but spent 10 days in San Diego while Clayton recovered.
“Yes, I was concerned,” Bridget says. “I was concerned because any time you say cancer everybody’s concerned.”
Clayton had the surgery in December 2019 and by late January 2020 was well enough to travel to South Florida to attend Super Bowl 54.
A major win.
“That is a W that I had the procedure,” Clayton said, “but I had to wait to make sure it hadn’t spread so I had to still go back out there. And it had not spread.”
Clayton joins Duper, who had a malignant tumor removed from his right kidney in 2013, among those to beat the disease.
“They can’t take the Marks Brothers out like that!” Clayton says jokingly. “They can’t do that. Man, I was dodging guys [during his playing days] while them other cats were taking those vicious hits. I was dodging those guys so they didn’t get me. You think I’m going to let cancer get me? That was my attitude.”
And his attitude about this new Hall of Fame hope?
“We haven’t said anything about it publicly because I didn’t want to step out of line or step on anybody’s toes,” Clayton says. “But we’re sitting here and nothing happened for 25 years. So now some guys are speaking up and I’m grateful for that. We’ll see where it leads.”
The hope is it will lead Mark Clayton to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
