Hall of Fame Shouts for Current NFL Players
The Pro Football Hall of Fame is where the NFL’s true legends ultimately end up, and plenty of active stars today already feel like clear NFL Hall of Fame prospects. Every Sunday, fans talk about players who have real NFL Hall of Fame shouts if their careers stopped right now, as awards stack up and deep playoff runs reshape how we see them.
In this guide, we walk through a select group of current players whose careers already look like serious gold-jacket material, breaking down how their on-field play and achievements stack up against past greats. Each section focuses on one star’s case for Canton, and the honourable mentions highlight others who are a few strong seasons away from joining that conversation.
Patrick Mahomes
By his early 30s, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback has already built the kind of career most players never get close to. Patrick Mahomes has multiple league MVPs, three Super Bowl rings, and three Super Bowl MVPs, putting him in the same conversation as the greatest postseason quarterbacks ever. Each championship run has featured signature drives where he dragged Kansas City back into games that looked out of reach.
The numbers match his reputation: in his first several seasons as a starter, he piled up well over two hundred touchdown passes, and the highest career passing yards per game among quarterbacks with at least 1,500 pass attempts. He has already led Kansas City to repeated conference title games and a long run of double-digit-win seasons, turning the team into a yearly contender rather than a brief fad.
What separates him is the way he creates when a play breaks down, as he can escape pressure and still fire accurate throws from unusual angles into tight windows. With multiple All-Pro seasons already on record and a heavy stack of playoff wins, his case for Canton would look strong even if his career ended tomorrow.
Aaron Rodgers
Long before the later stages of his career with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Aaron Rodgers had already done enough in Green Bay to sit comfortably among the game’s legends and the most obvious NFL Hall of Fame prospects. He won four league MVP awards, a total topped only by Peyton Manning, and he guided the Packers to a Super Bowl XLV win, where he also claimed Super Bowl MVP. Even with just one ring, that hardware and sustained form give him one of the strongest NFL Hall of Fame shouts of any modern quarterback.
His numbers show just how remarkable that run has been. Rodgers owns the best touchdown-to-interception ratio in league history, with 525 career passing touchdowns against 123 interceptions, and his career passer rating sits above 100, higher than almost every long-term starter. He ranks near the top of the all-time list in touchdown passes and sits comfortably inside the top tier for passing yards.
Over the years, he stacked up 10 Pro Bowl trips and four first-team All-Pro selections, then added a late-career surge with MVP seasons in 2020 and 2021. He even had multiple years with over 4,000 passing yards and five or fewer interceptions, a level of efficiency no other quarterback has matched more than once. Even as he has said he is pretty sure 2025 will be his final season, Rodgers has already secured a first-ballot place in Canton as one of the most gifted passers the league has seen.
Travis Kelce
As the key receiving threat in Kansas City’s offence, Travis Kelce has built the kind of career that tight ends used to only dream about. Season after season, he put up wide receiver numbers from an in-line position, stacking seven seasons with 1,000+ receiving yards and a long run of campaigns with well over eighty catches. That consistency pushed him past twelve thousand receiving yards and into the same statistical neighbourhood as Tony Gonzalez and Jason Witten, which is rare air for the position.
Kelce has multiple first-team All-Pro selections and a long list of Pro Bowl trips, and his best work often arrived when the stakes were highest in January. He sits at the top of the all-time playoff receptions list (178) and trails only Jerry Rice in postseason receiving yards (2,078) and receiving touchdowns (20), which shows how often Patrick Mahomes looked his way when drives had to stay alive.
What makes his case even stronger is how he changed expectations for modern tight ends. Kelce runs routes like a top receiver, wins from the slot or out wide, and creates constant mismatch problems for defensive coordinators. Paired with several Super Bowl wins and a long prime at the very top of his position, that impact leaves little doubt about where his career is headed once he retires.
T.J. Watt
T.J. Watt has quickly become one of the most feared defenders in football, and his numbers already look like something out of a Hall of Fame résumé. For Pittsburgh, he has been the engine of the pass rush, tying Michael Strahan’s single-season sack record with 22.5 in 2021 and leading the league in sacks in 2020, 2021, and 2023. Through 134 regular-season games, he has 115 career sacks. His sack rate is among the very best the league has ever seen.
Watt has a Defensive Player of the Year award and four first-team All-Pro selections, and from 2019 through 2021, he reached at least 14.5 sacks every season, a three-year surge previously matched only by Reggie White and Jared Allen. Offences regularly slide extra protection his way, yet he still shows up with strip sacks and drive-killing plays in key spots.
Coming from a family already associated with defensive greatness, he has carved out his own legacy in Pittsburgh, and at 31, he is still adding to a career that already looks worthy of serious Canton discussions.
Myles Garrett
Myles Garrett has grown into one of the defining pass rushers of his era, stacking output at a rate that already puts him in rare company. Since 2018, he has delivered at least 10 sacks in eight straight seasons. He recorded 14 or more sacks in four straight seasons from 2021 through 2024, then raised the pace again in 2025. By the end of 2024, he was already over 100 career sacks, sitting at 102.5 before his 30th birthday, a mark that places him alongside some of the fastest starters the league has ever seen.
Garrett won the 2023 AP Defensive Player of the Year award and is back in the DPOY conversation in 2025, with 21.5 sacks through 14 games.. He currently has four first-team All-Pro selections and is a six-time Pro Bowler. He forces fumbles, blows up runs in the backfield, and still finds ways to affect the pocket when teams game-plan to slow him down.
The major gap on Garrett’s résumé is a lack of deep playoff runs, something that often matters for voters, yet many edge rushers have reached Canton on individual dominance alone. If he stays fit and keeps anywhere near this pace into his thirties, his case for a gold jacket will be very difficult to argue against.
Trent Williams
Among active veterans, few linemen have built a bigger name for Canton than San Francisco 49ers left tackle Trent Williams. For anyone weighing NFL Hall of Fame prospects, his résumé jumps out immediately with 11 Pro Bowls and three first-team All-Pro selections. That level of recognition at such a demanding position over so many years gives him one of the clearest NFL Hall of Fame shouts.
Williams anchors the 49ers’ line as their blindside protector and driving force in the run game, regularly wiping out edge rushers and opening lanes on the perimeter. Coaches trust him because he pairs overwhelming strength with light feet, which lets him handle bull rushers and speed threats alike. Since arriving in San Francisco, his output has climbed even higher, with a run of All-Pro seasons that matches the team’s deep playoff pushes.
Even without counting stats like touchdowns, Williams’ value shows in clean pockets and runs to his side, while teammates talk about him as the standard for their unit. With his late-30s form still at an All-Pro level and more than a decade of elite play behind him, Trent Williams looks very close to a gold-jacket lock once he retires.
Aaron Donald
During a decade with the Rams, Aaron Donald played at a level that put him in the same conversation as Lawrence Taylor or Mean Joe Greene and made his Hall of Fame case feel automatic long before he retired in early 2024. He won Defensive Player of the Year three times, tying the NFL record, and stacked eight straight first-team All-Pro selections from his second season onward. Every single year he played, he made the Pro Bowl, going ten-for-ten in selections in a way almost no one else has managed.
Donald wasn’t a prototype on paper at about 6'1" and 280 pounds, yet inside he moved with rare quickness and power, which turned him into a nightmare for guards and centres. He finished with 111 sacks from the interior, a Rams record and an absurd total for his position, while offences spent entire game plans trying to slow him with extra blockers.
Aaron Donald’s late pressure on fourth down in Super Bowl LVI effectively sealed the Lombardi Trophy for Los Angeles and gave him the ring his contribution deserved. When his five-year waiting period ends in 2029, he will walk into Canton as a generational defensive tackle and a player many already call the best to ever play that role.
Honourable Mentions
Beyond the headline names, there is another group of active stars whose careers already sit on the short list of serious NFL Hall of Fame prospects. They have some key boxes ticked already and, with a bit more peak output or playoff success, could cross the line from “maybe” to “near lock.”
- Von Miller: He has 136.5 career sacks and added a Super Bowl 50 MVP on his way to carrying defences through multiple deep playoff runs in Denver and beyond. Miller’s edge-rush output and big-stage impact give him a profile that usually ends up in Canton.
- Bobby Wagner: Year after year, he has piled up tackles and first-team All-Pro nods while running elite defences in Seattle. His combination of range and durability at middle linebacker over such a long period already looks like a Hall résumé.
- Derrick Henry: Multiple rushing titles, a 2,000-yard season, and more than ten thousand rushing yards in a pass-first era make his case stand out. If he adds a bit more yardage and stays near the top of the league a little longer, he will be very hard to deny.
- Mike Evans: His 1,000-yard streak actually reached 11 straight seasons in 2024, tying Jerry Rice’s NFL record. He is also over 100 receiving touchdowns and has a Super Bowl ring, which puts him in a strong long-term position with voters.
- Lamar Jackson: Two MVP awards and the all-time record for career rushing yards by a quarterback put him in rare company. If he strings together more deep playoff runs and keeps his dual-threat level this high, his file will look more and more like that of past inductees.
- Tyreek Hill: The league’s most feared deep threat for years, he has stacked All-Pro seasons, huge receiving totals, and a ring from his Kansas City run. Continued elite speed and volume in Miami would push his case into sombre territory.
- Justin Jefferson: Still early in his career, he has already recorded multiple seasons that would be career years for many receivers. If he keeps this pace through his prime, his numbers will force voters to treat him as more than just a highlight machine.
Taken together, this group represents the next wave of NFL Hall of Fame shouts behind the prominent first-ballot names. A few more elite seasons, or a defining Super Bowl run at the right moment, could be enough to turn several of these careers into gold-jacket stories.