To this day it still chaps my ass that people don't understand how much luck and outside forces control an athlete's destiny, especially in football.
Everyone now is of the opinion that Vince wasn't great in the NFL (I'd argue his ever improving stats suggest he just hadn't hit his stride yet). Someone in this very thread stated that Vince just couldn't hack it in the NFL because he didn't want to commit to the grind. Yeah, ok. Sure, buddy. Being drafted by the Titans to play for a HC that not only didn't want him as a QB, who was actively trying to sabotage his career, probably hurt his chances of becoming a great NFL QB. Maybe having an idiot HC who favored a washed-up drunk and Norm Chow as an OC might have hurt his chances a bit. Just maybe.
Now compare Vince's situation to, say, Aaron Rodgers. Instead of going to a bottom-feeder team with no talent and an idiotic, malicious HC, he fell down to the bottom of the 1st round of the Draft and got picked by the Packers. Instead of being immediately thrown to the wolves with no help, Aaron got to sit on the sidelines and learn the game. He got to watch future HoFer Brett Favre play every week. Instead of being sabotaged at every turn, ol' Aaron had the full support of a top-flight organization who did everything to nurture this guy's talent and help him maximize his talent. Or do you all think Aaron Rodgers would be a sure-fire HoF lock and a Super Bowl winner under Fisher with the Titans?
We all get that life isn't fair. So I'll never understand why we only acknowledge that when things don't work out for us or others. When people get lucky with their circumstances we act like they got there all on their own through just their hard work and talent. Bull-fucking-shit. Tom Brady would be a middling, retired QB who might not have even seen the field if he didn't A) get drafted by Belichick and B) if Drew Bledsoe didn't get obliterated against the Jets. All credit to Brady for making the most of his chance, but he got incredibly lucky.
All of that to say, Jamaal absolutely deserves to be in the Hall. Forces outside his control severely limited his playing time early in his career, made him basically a one-man show in KC, and then eventually wrecked his knees and ended his career. Despite everything, dude still did stuff no one else has managed to achieve. Maybe one day Tyreek Hill or some other super special talent will surpass his YPC, but Jamaal did it first. And he didn't have a Mahomes or a Kelce or an Andy Reid to help him.
People always love to talk about speed, but I think the word that goes best with Jamaal is agility. Like, he personifies the word. I have a picture of him somewhere on an old hard drive in a game for the Horns where he is making a cut and he is legitimately almost perpendicular with the ground. Dude had radical balance. He could bounce out of almost anything. You think he'll be going down any second now and he just keeps cutting and moving and dodging and embarrassing the fuck out of defenders. He was a once-in-a-generation talent. Oh, and he also happens to be a nice dude, too.
Sorry about the rant, but fuck anyone not bowing down to the greatness of Jamaal fucking Charles. He was one of the greatest players we've ever had on the 40 acres and he took that to the NFL and dominated. If he had stronger knee ligaments he'd be going down in history as arguably the greatest RB of all-time.