Emmitt went far longer than the 10 minutes the players were allotted but I guess John Randle let him have the minutes he didn't use.
I thought he did a great job and without using notes! People bust on him all the time for his inability to speak well or for using words incorrectly but he certainly proved them wrong last night. I think it is a lot easier to talk about the things you know than trying to say things that you're "supposed" to say, like when you are an analyst.
Floyd Little sounded like a very polished speaker and his son was amazing! I could listen to that guy all day. Great voice & mannerisms, just a real pleasure to hear and very heartfelt. I love the relationship that family has.
I felt sorry for Rickey Jackson as he stumbled through his speech but considering where he came from (his "hometown", as he brought up a dozen times or more) I cut him a lot of slack.
I was a bit disappointed in Rice's speech because he mostly just read it from his notes and it didn't sound like it was written by him at times as he stumbled over the sentence structure.
Randle just read a list of people he wanted to thank and it was surprising since he was such a talker on the field, but I thought he came off very humble and grateful to be there.
Dick LeBeau is the DC of the Stealers and he made that abundantly clear as he talked about the current team more than anyone else. I would have liked to hear more about his former Lions teammates since several of his defensive mates are in the HoF but he didn't spend much time on them compared with his current group of players.
Not a "bad" speech necessarily, just not what I was hoping for. His brother's intro was excellent though.
Russ Grimm was pretty good and I liked that he had Joe Bugel present him, that was classy IMO (rather than Gibbs). I always had a lot of respect for their O-Line back then even though I hated them. I met Joe Jacoby once and told him that I used to hate his guts. I'm a very large guy (6'3" and @ 265 at the time) but he was HUGE! He looked at me strangely for a second until I told him I was a Cowboys fan. He grinned and shook my hand and said, "Now I understand".
I would rank the speeches this way:
1. Floyd Little - Very well done, very touching, concise, and an excellent speaker.
2. Emmitt Smith - Much better than I expected, less emotional throughout but hit some great moments (like when he had Moose stand up. I'm tearing up thinking about it). The only negative is that he went too long but since he's a Dallas Cowboy I don't mind! :starspin
I've got to run so I can't fill in my comments on the rest.
3. Russ Grimm
4. Jerry Rice
5. Dick LeBeau
6. John Randle
7. Rickey Jackson
