FILE – In this 1974 file photo, Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler looks to pass, Stabler will be posthumously inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016.
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His former coach, John Madden, presented Stabler for enshrinement, and Stabler’s family and Hall of Fame receiver Ken Biletnikoff represented Stabler on the stage.
The only thing missing when Stabler is inducted into the Hall of Fame on August 6, 2016, will be Stabler himself.
Or, as Chris Berman, the ceremony’s emcee, said: “To watch him play quarterback and look at him without a helmet, Ken Stabler was – without a doubt – an Oakland Raider”.
“I always said that if I could choose one quarterback to make a drive the length of the field at the end of the game. that guy would be Ken Stabler, No. 12”, he said.
“I was head coach of the Raiders the entire time Kenny was there and he led us to a whole bunch of victories including one in Super Bowl XI”, said Hall of Fame head coach John Madden in a team statement (via Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com).
“I always believed that Kenny should have been in the Hall of Fame before”, Hall of Fame receiver Fred Biletnikoff, said of his friend and former teammate.
Coming out of Alabama, Stabler eventually landed the starting quarterback position for the Raiders and earned himself the starting position with an epic scrambling touchdown in the playoffs.
Stabler became the primary starter for the Silver and Black in 1973.
The author of such classic National Football League games as the Sea of Hands, Ghost to the Post and the Holy Roller, Stabler is also still the Oakland Raiders franchise leader in victories (69), passing yards (19,078) and passing touchdowns (150), despite playing his last game for Oakland in 1979. He had reverence for that era’s unquestioned leader, quarterback Kenny Stabler. “And that’s what he did, ‘” Moyes, said after his presentation, in an interview broadcast for the capacity crowd at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium. I know it was there, but it was never a big factor.
“The title I use is his life partner”, Bush told KQED, a Northern California media earlier this year.
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