When I began this blog almost exactly 13 years ago in late August 2008, James, picked 4th overall by the Indianapolis Colts in the 1999 NFL Draft, was in the latter part of his career; and it never occurred to me that he was Hall of Fame bound because (I'll admit it) I had forgotten how great he was during the prime of his career.
In case you had forgotten too .....James rushed for 1,533 yards and 13 TD, was named offensive rookie of the year, and made 1st team All-Pro in 1999 - not too bad a debut. He then followed that by rushing for 1,709 yards and 13 TD the next year, leading the league in rushing for the 2nd straight season. But it wasn't just the yards rushing. James was a serious weapon in the passing game too, totaling nearly 600 yards receiving in each of those first two seasons. And he was on pace to at least match those numbers in his 3rd year until he suffered a knee injury (torn ACL) in the 6th game of the season.
In 2016 James left the Colts and headed for greener pastures (that's green, as in more money green), signing as a free agent with the Arizona Cardinals ..... and watched his former team, after enduring years of playoff frustration, win the Super Bowl without him. But a couple of years later Edgerrin finally made it to the Super Bowl himself. After rushing for more than 1,100 yards in both of his first two seasons with Arizona - only to finish 5-11 and 8-8 in those seasons - it was in year 3 that he nearly won it all. In a 2008 season in which he rushed for a career low 514 yards, the Cardinals (just 9-7 during the regular season) rose from the #4 seed in the NFC to get to the Super Bowl for the first time ever; and in Super Bowl 43 Edgerrin had all 33 of the Cardinals' rushing yards (on 9 carries) in their thrilling but heartbreaking 27-23 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
His appearance in the Super Bowl was pretty much the last hurrah for James' career. The death (leukemia) of his girlfriend during the 2009 offseason took a heavy toll on him mentally, and he was ineffective playing for the Seattle Seahawks during the first half of the '09 season. He was released after averaging just 2.7 yards per carry in 7 games and officially retired just before the start of training camp in 2011.
Toward the end of his induction speech James made sure to mention that when he first came into the league, the Colts (and probably 31 other teams as well) may have been excited about his talent but not so much his dreads and gold teeth. 20 years ago dreads were, to put it kindly, not as accepted as they are now. But he wasn't going to change who he was or the way he looked; and he showed to all the haters and doubters that having your hair in dreads doesn't automatically make you a bad person. And his refusal to conform helped pave the way for the many more football players with dreads that would follow, several of whom will be joining him in the Hall in the years ahead.
Pro Football Hall of Fame? Absolutely. But Edgerrin wouldn't get very many votes to be included in a dreads hall of fame. Only briefly during his time in the NFL did he let his dreads get very long. In the left photo above is how they looked late in his rookie season. It wasn't until his 3rd season (2011) that they started to become visible outside of his helmet (right photo above). They were at their longest at the start of the 2003 season (left photo below) when the Colts played the Browns in Cleveland on opening day. But after a Browns defender grabbed his dreads to make a tackle during the game, Edgerrin immediately did the sensible but less glamorous thing - deciding to cut his dreads shorter to make sure they would never be grabbed again; and in the photo on the right below was how he looked just a week later for the Colts' home opener. From then on his dreads never again got long enough to be seen with his helmet on.
If you want, you can catch James' induction speech in the video on the first link below. The second link is to an Indianapolis Star columnist's article commenting on his speech. And below that is an article from the Pro Football History website that details Edgerrin's career.
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