Jason Hanson: A Hall of Fame Talent Stunted by a Career in Detroit

Jason Hanson is a victim.

He was blessed with a golden leg and the raw talent and ability to break every professional kicking record on the books.

Then he was drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1992 and has been there ever since.

Now I love the Detroit Lions, and I always will, but I'm a football fan first, so even I recognize that Hanson's numbers are a shadow of what they would be with another team.

A placekicker isn't like any offensive position. He can't put the team on his back and put up numbers regardless of his team's performance. If the team can't get into field goal range, the kicker can't score, period. There's no such thing as an 80-yard field goal.

So Hanson sits at seventh all-time in scoring when he has the talent to be several spots up. Jason Elam, Matt Stover, and John Carney are all active kickers sitting above him on the all-time scoring list by at least 150 points.

Carney and Stover are both older than Hanson, and Elam is roughly the same age, but all have been with more prolific teams than the Lions.

Yet have they been better kickers than Hanson?

All have comparable career field goal percentages (within about one point of 82 percent, though Stover's is the third-highest of all time at 83.82), but Hanson has maintained and even refined his long-range ability, while the others have become primarily short-range specialists.

To illustrate, Hanson set an NFL record by going 8-for-8 from 50-plus yards in 2008.  Elam, Carney, and Stover are a combined 8-for-15 from that range since 2005.

Now, it is difficult to say what goes into a Hall of Fame placekicker.

Only one, Jan Stenerud, has entered the Hall as a pure placekicker. Stenerud currently ranks 10th on the NFL's all-time scoring list and was admitted to the Hall with a career field goal percentage of just under 67 percent.

At the time of his induction, Stenerud was the second-leading scorer of all time behind George Blanda (who simultaneously played placekicker and quarterback).

If Hanson's production continues as it has recently to the end of his current contract, he will pass Blanda by over 100 points while having 15 percentage points of accuracy on Stenerud.

In addition, he is the highest-ranking player on the all-time scoring list to have only played for one team.

Which, of course, is part of the problem. Stenerud kicked three field goals in Super Bowl IV. Hanson has spent his entire career with a team that has only won one playoff game in the Super Bowl era.

Placekickers earn recognition by making clutch kicks in big games. But when the team is never in a position to win any game, much less a big one, a kicker cannot kick a game-winning field goal.

Regardless, Hanson's current contract with the Detroit Lions will end just before he turns 43, so it seems he intends to finish his career in Detroit.

If that is the case, it is unlikely he will see very many games to show what he can do with the game on the line, and though he may deserve the Hall, his credentials will likely suffer for it.

After all, nobody sees what a player should have achieved on paper. Either they didn't or they did.

Hanson, unfortunately, has as many game-winning kicks in playoff games as I do.

Sure, he holds two NFL records, is the only player still with the same team since the advent of free agency, is almost certainly the last No. 4 ever to play in a Lions uniform, and he could be as high as third on the all-time scoring list by the time he retires.

But will it be enough?

After all, he spent his entire career with the Lions.