.png)
Finalists for 2025 class
will be announced later this year
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND - NOVEMBER 17: Marshal
Yanda #73 of the Baltimore Ravens looks on prior to the game against the
Houston Texans at M&T Bank Stadium on November 17, 2019 in Baltimore,
Maryland. (Photo by Todd Olszewski/Getty Images)
By Brian Wacker | bwacker@baltsun.com
UPDATED: November 20, 2024 at 4:38 PM
EST
Former Ravens stars Terrell Suggs and Marshal
Yanda moved closer to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Wednesday.
Both are among 25 modern-era semifinalists for the
Class of 2025, the Hall of Fame announced. Suggs and Yanda have a chance to
join Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and Jonathan Ogden in being enshrined as first-ballot
selections.
Other
semifinalists who also played for Baltimore include Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith
Sr., Willie Anderson and Earl Thomas. Former Ravens defensive tackle Haloti
Ngata did not make the cut from last month’s list of 50 that had been whittled
down from 167 initial nominees.
Suggs
ranks eighth all-time in sacks with 139 over 17 seasons, all but one of which
he spent with the Ravens. Drafted 10th overall out of Arizona State by
Baltimore in 2003, the outside linebacker was also the NFL Defensive Player of
the Year in 2011 with a career-high 14 sacks and seven forced fumbles and the
league’s Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2003 with a dozen sacks.
He was
also an All-Pro in 2011, selected to seven Pro Bowls and won two Super Bowl
titles, including one with the Ravens during the 2012 season and another with
the Kansas City Chiefs in 2019 in the final year of his career.
Suggs, 42, was arrested in Arizona earlier this year after
allegedly threatening to kill another driver and pulling out a gun at a
Starbucks drive-through in what was the latest incident in a long list of legal
troubles, but the Hall of Fame explicitly instructs voters to consider only
what players do on the field.
Yanda, meanwhile, was a two-time All-Pro and
selected to the Pro Bowl in eight of his nine seasons at right guard. He was
also named to the NFL 2010s All-Decade Team and, like Suggs, helped Baltimore
win its second championship in 2012.
He spent his entire 13-year career with the
Ravens before retiring in 2019.
Smith, who
was with Baltimore for his final three years in the league from 2014 to 2016,
was a two-time All-Pro and five-time Pro Bowl selection and ranks eighth on the
all-time receiving yards list (14,731). Boldin, who played for the Ravens from
2010 through 2012 and was a three-time Pro Bowl selection before his arrival,
was also a key contributor to Baltimore’s title run and ranks 14th in the NFL
in career receiving yards (13,779).
The list
of 25 nominees will be cut to 15 finalists later this year, with between four
and eight being selected for induction into the class of 2025.
Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/brianwacker1.
Originally Published: November 20, 2024 at 1:30 PM EST
