How the Dolphins’ Zach Thomas blended humility, fury into a HOF career
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MIAMI — For a time, Zach Thomas was content with accepting his fate.
The former Miami Dolphins linebacker enjoyed a 13-year Hall of Fame-worthy playing career — or so many football fans believed. But for nine years after he became eligible for enshrinement, voters decided otherwise.
In 2023, his 10th year of eligibility and fourth straight as a finalist, he got the news.
He was in.
Thomas will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Aug. 5, and although the wait was long, it wasn’t necessarily strenuous. In his eyes, he was an undersized, fifth-round pick from a small town in West Texas who was under consideration for the sport’s highest honor. That humble perspective is as much a defining characteristic of Thomas’ legacy as his jarring tackles.
“Once you get into the finalists, and you’re a finalist year after year, you get more of a chance, so I was very grateful for that,” Thomas said after he received the news. “My family, I would let them vent one day if I didn’t make it, and that’s it. Because the game has been so good to me.
“I’m never going to be ungrateful, even if I never made the Hall of Fame, because it’s so good to me.”
Football was good to Thomas, but Thomas was also good for football; seven Pro Bowls, five All-Pro selections and the fifth-most tackles in NFL history (1,734).
The Texas Tech product made an impression on at least one Dolphin…
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