NFL

Respectfully, those guys are a full tier below Peppers. Still fantastic players who deserve to make the Hall without a doubt, don't get me wrong, but the comparison is decidedly lopsided in Peppers' favor. Just to put it into context, I'll compare him against Jared Allen (too lazy to do both atm):

• 159.5 sacks for Peppers (4th in official sack tally) vs. 136 for Allen (12th)

• 6x total All-Pro teams for Peppers vs. 4x for Allen

• Peppers on both the 2000s and 2010s HOF teams, Allen on neither

And so on and so forth. The comparison would be roughly the same for Freeney as well, with the only exception being that I'm pretty sure Freeney has fewer sacks, but did make the cut for the 2000s HOF team.

Allen and Freeney were damn special players, and they definitely should make it in over the next couple years, but if they're only admitting one DE this year (which they don't have even a soft rule on so far as I can recall - pretty sure we've seen multiple instances where multiple players from the same position group got inducted the same year, like Urlacher and Ray Lewis at MLB), it's gotta be Peppers.