{"id":732945,"date":"2026-02-06T08:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T08:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/732945\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T08:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T08:02:18","slug":"steelers-legend-gets-snubbed-again-for-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/732945\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers Legend Gets Snubbed Again for Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pro Football Hall of Fame<\/a>\u2022Steelers News<\/a>\u2022Super Bowl LX<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers’ defensive end L.C. Greenwood is seen in 1973. (AP Photo\/Harry Cabluck)\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end L.C. Greenwood<\/a> was not elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. This was the first season that Greenwood has been a finalist in 40 years of eligibility.<\/p>\n

Former San Francisco 49ers running back Roger Craig was the only one of five candidates put forward by the seniors, coaches and contributors committees to be selected. Quarterback Drew Brees, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, linebacker Luke Keuchly and kicker Adam Vinatieri round out the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2026. <\/p>\n

Greenwood is the most-decorated member of the 1970s Steelers who has not yet been enshrined in Canton, Ohio. A 10th-round draft pick out of Arkansas Pine-Bluff in 1969, Greenwood became a starter in his third season and then spent another 10 as the team\u2019s stalwart at left defensive end alongside Joe Greene, Dwight White and Earl Holmes on the famous Steel Curtain defensive line.<\/p>\n

He was a four-time Super Bowl champion, a six-time Pro Bowler and a two-time All-Pro. Greenwood was a member of the NFL 1970s All-Decade Team, and is already a member of the Steelers Hall of Honor.<\/p>\n

Though sacks were not official NFL statistics until 1983, research by Pro Football Reference<\/a> credits Greenwood with 78 in his career, the fourth-most in franchise history.<\/p>\n

A native of Canton, Mississippi, Greenwood retired in 1981 and died from kidney failure in 2013 at the age of 67. <\/p>\n

The Super Steelers of the 1970s have 10 players in the Hall of Fame \u2014 five on offense and five on defense. Quarterback Terry Bradshaw, running back Franco Harris, wide receiver John Stallworth, wide receiver Lynn Swann, center Mike Webster, defensive tackle Joe Greene, linebacker Jack Lambert, linebacker Jack Ham, cornerback Mel Blount and strong safety Donnie Shell are in the Hall. Head coach Chuck Noll is also in Canton. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a belief<\/a> that Hall of Fame voters feel like there\u2019s already enough \u201970s Steelers in the Hall of Fame, and that\u2019s why Greenwood continues to be denied. <\/p>\n

Former Steelers player and coach Tony Dungy<\/a>, who is one of two with Pittsburgh ties on the voting panel, alongside Pittsburgh Post-Gazette beat writer Gerry Dulac, said the current Hall of Fame voting process is holding voters back from letting more deserving candidates be recognized<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like the process the way it is now,\u201d Dungy said Tuesday in advance of Super Bowl LX in San Francisco. \u201cI said it last year. Now, I\u2019m not going to comment on this year\u2019s voting because I don\u2019t know who\u2019s in and who\u2019s out, but I said it last year. We changed the process last year and went to this 80% deal. \u2026 Five years ago, we had an eight-person class: five modern, one coach, one contributor, one senior. Last year, we had a four-person class: three modern, no coaches, no contributors, one senior.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s because we changed the voting process. I don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to have this year, but if you don\u2019t have a full class, we\u2019ve got so many people who are worthy of being in the Hall of Fame, and if we don\u2019t put a full class in, to me, that\u2019s wrong. So we\u2019ll see. I don\u2019t know who\u2019s going to be in and who isn\u2019t, but we\u2019ll see on Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SteelersNORFOLK, Va. \u2014 L.C. Greenwood, a former Pittsburgh Steeler, and Luis Tiant, a former Boston Red Sox player, stand on the brow of USS Albany (SSN 753) with Chief of the Boat, Michael Nichols, before going below decks to tour Albany June 13. The tour was part of Summerfest 2007, hosted by Naval Station Norfolk\u2019s Morale Welfare and Recreation. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Christina M. Shaw (RELEASED)<\/p>\n

Dungy thinks Greenwood belongs in the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

\u201cL.C. Greenwood was a special player and a special man,\u201d Dungy said. \u201cHe was a guy that I looked up to as a high schooler. And then I got to Pittsburgh and I had the chance to play alongside him. He did things at the left-end position, had to do it in our defense that no other left-ends did. He won four Super Bowl rings. He was an outstanding player.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me to be on the voting team and have to be impartial, that\u2019s hard because he was so special to me. So I had to fight my way to be impartial and put that out of my mind. But he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greenwood had standout performances in the Steelers\u2019 first two Super Bowl wins. He batted down three of Fran Tarkenton\u2019s passes in Super Bowl IX, one of which landed in the hands of Joe Greene for an interception. And then, in Super Bowl X, he unofficially was credited with four sacks of Roger Staubach. Greenwood is the only player to collect more than three sacks in a Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gets less credit than he deserves playing next to Joe,\u201d former Steelers linebacker and Hall of Famer Jack Ham recently said<\/a>. \u201cNo question Joe deserves all the accolades he has received. But L.C. deserves them too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greene added, \u201cIn my view, when L.C. was playing, he was easily in the top three or four defensive ends during that time. L.C. was a partner of mine on the line for 13 years, and he was a wonderful teammate. \u2026 With L.C. beside me, and us working together, we accomplished some pretty good things together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alan Saunders provided reporting from San Francisco. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: L.C. Greenwood<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Pro Football Hall of Fame<\/a> Steelers<\/a> Steelers News<\/a> Super Bowl LX<\/a> top<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pro Football Hall of Fame\u2022Steelers News\u2022Super Bowl LX Pittsburgh Steelers’ defensive end L.C. Greenwood is seen in 1973.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,39989,6,520,57,2360,1371,426,2395,16165,3444],"class_list":{"0":"post-732945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-l-c-greenwood","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","14":"tag-pro-football-hall-of-fame","15":"tag-steelers","16":"tag-steelers-news","17":"tag-super-bowl-lx","18":"tag-top"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116022644762655863","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}