An NFL player’s greatest honor is to one day receive a call for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, right? To be among the greatest in gridiron football and have your name permanently etched for the future. It’s seen as sport’s most sacred acknowledgement. But if you thought all of it might just be a sham, you won’t be far off. Deion Sanders, a Hall of Famer himself and one of the modern greats of the NFL, revealed that the recognition doesn’t come without a price tag. Turns out, all that glitz and fanfare for ‘honoring’ a player’s career is not done out of generosity.
A phenom on both sides of the ball, Coach Prime will not just be a name in history books – he’ll have one whole to himself. Sanders retired in 2006 with a career that spanned 14 seasons and also established himself as a cultural icon. Deion Sanders towered over his fellow athletes as a brand. And naturally, the NFL inducted him into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011. However, the honor wasn’t bestowed on Coach Prime free of cost.
The icon disclosed the lesser-known realities of HOF in a May 31 episode of Say What Needs To Be Said. “I’m going tell you what people don’t know, man. The Hall of Fame cost too. It ain’t free. Like, the team you played the most years with, you gonna have to ride with them now. Because if you ain’t riding with them, it ain’t riding with you. It’s gonna cost you about $250,000,” Coach Prime revealed. Host and ex-NFLer Asante Samuel was stunned, and his gobsmacked expression mirrored everyone’s. Sanders also recalled a past incident with other Hall of Famers like Marshall Faulk and Kurt Warner. “Everybody had a different cost. It was, it was enormous, man. I think the lowest was 250.”
LA: Super Bowl LIX – Radio Row Deion Sanders speaks to members of the media on Radio Row at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 7, 2025. Super Bowl LIX will take place Sunday Feb. 9, 2025 between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. Photo by Anthony Behar/Sipa USA New Orleans New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Con Louisiana USA NOxUSExINxGERMANY PUBLICATIONxINxALGxARGxAUTxBRNxBRAxCANxCHIxCHNxCOLxECUxEGYxGRExINDxIRIxIRQxISRxJORxKUWxLIBxLBAxMLTxMEXxMARxOMAxPERxQATxKSAxSUIxSYRxTUNxTURxUAExUKxVENxYEMxONLY Copyright: xAnthonyxBeharx Editorial use only
“For instance, I’m just throwing out a number, $10 a signature on your own. They want 5 of that… I think they’ve gotten better, and I applaud that. But it used to be something else.” Coach Prime revealed. Imagine having to pay a six-figure sum to a committee that is supposed to honor you for your efforts. And the revelation raised some uncomfortable questions within the committee.
Coach Prime also came to support fellow Hall of Famer Terrell Owens, who was inducted in 2018. He was the first inductee to skip the ceremony. Naturally, the move got the former WR some backlash. By the way, he was already miffed that the committee didn’t pick him the first time he got on the ballots, in 2016. Coach Prime called it a smart move because he had to pay a fee in the end. For all his charisma and contributions, even Deion couldn’t escape the fine print and ultimately had to pay a certain fee to get into that revered institution. Asante Samuel was caught off guard by the revelation. While the episode dealt with a stark disclosure, it also gave Sanders and Samuel a chance to revisit their personal history.
Deion Sanders and Asante Samuel sort out their differences
The more Coach Prime went on about the dark machinery behind the process, it became increasingly surprising for the host. “We trying to get paid from the Hall of Fame, but we gotta pay?” Samuel exclaimed. “Man, that’s breaking news right there.” Though Samuel, a former NFL player himself, was way too invested in this tell-all segment, let’s not forget that the two had some bad blood brewing between them for quite some time. However, it didn’t do much damage because the camaraderie between the two seemed to flow naturally.
Samuel also has a lot of feats to his name. The former CB played 11 seasons in the NFL, racking up 51 passes and also bagging two Super Bowls. Samuel played for the Patriots, Eagles, and Falcons. Deion Sanders, in an old NFL Network interview, gave Samuel a label that didn’t sit right with him. Coach Prime regarded the CB to be the ‘best off corner’ in the league at that point of time. What Sanders intended to be a compliment, Samuel thought, was disrespect. Being off corner can translate to avoiding covering the top receivers.
Sanders was confused as to why his comment didn’t land with Samuel, as he expected. “I think this was the first and the last time I ever gave a ranking. I’m telling you, you don’t know that. That was the first and the last time… Then I said, Asante Samuel is the best off-corner in the game, and you didn’t want that…. Like what I would have wished that you did, I wish you would have traveled. I wish you would have took the dog and took him out to get it because I know you was capable. But y’all didn’t do that.”
Samuel argued his case like this. “How I looked at it, coach, right? The quarterback was in control of the football. Most quarterbacks are right-handed. And most passes go to the right side and the defensive left side. So my mindset was, I’m going to take away the quarterback’s favorite side to throw to, and that’s going to create an advantage for the defense. So I’m playing the quarterback. I don’t wish to play the receiver because the quarterback has to get the ball to the receiver. So that was my mindset, but nobody understood what I was doing.” Samuel, after all, led the NFL twice in his career for interceptions, in 2008 and 2009.
But all that is now behind them, and they both carried out an almost hour-long episode for the podcast. It sure became a special one, because Deion Sanders uncovered some pretty debatable occurrences in the NFL.
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