ESPN’s Chris Berman Talks Pro Football Hall of Fame Induction Weekend w/ Rich

Chris Berman can trace the exact moment Hall of Fame weekend outgrew its own front lawn, and the answer runs straight through Buffalo.

For years the enshrinement ceremony happened on the steps of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, in the strip of grass between those steps and I-77. Rich looked at that space this week and could not believe how many people used to be squeezed into it. Berman remembers the Pittsburgh classes best, fans stacked along the interstate with trucks going by at 70 miles an hour, because every year there seemed to be at least one Steeler going in.

Then Jim Kelly got the call. Berman drew the geography himself, Buffalo to Pittsburgh to Canton, close enough to a straight line that Bills fans simply made the drive and slept in campers the night before. The ceremony moved into the stadium in 2002, and Berman walked out about 30 minutes early to test the microphone.

"I went, oh my god, this is a Buffalo home game," he said.

All he was doing was tapping the mic. The crowd erupted anyway. "I'm not Jim Kelly. I'm not Andre Reed. I'm not Thurman Thomas. I'm not Bruce Smith," Berman said. None of that mattered. They were already in their seats, already in Bills gear, already ready.

Berman traces the pressure on the old setup back a couple of years earlier, to the first big Hall of Fame reunion. Guys came off the buses in no particular order, more returning Hall of Famers than the building had ever handled, and Berman stood at the mic without a running order while Joe Horrigan tried to sprint a card over to him before each name. That was the tell. The steps were done.

Rich has his own scar from those years. In 2009, Berman presented Ralph Wilson Jr., and because presenters gave live speeches back then, someone else had to handle the microphone. Rich got the call to the bullpen. Berman's advice the night before was two words past printable, roughly: don't mess it up.

That night, Bullet Bob Hayes and Derrick Thomas were going in posthumously, and presenters had been asked to keep those remarks to five minutes. Roger Staubach hit five on the dot for Hayes and walked off. Carl Peterson spoke for 23 and a half minutes for Thomas. Rich went looking for Horrigan backstage for help and got none, then turned around to find Staubach standing in front of him. "Rich, I was told to go just five minutes. I'd have spoken longer if I could," Staubach told him.

Presenter speeches never happened again after that year, a fact Berman delivered with some relish, since he had gone 10 or 12 minutes for Wilson himself. He is unapologetic about it. Once you tell a crowd that a man served in both theaters of World War II and then owned the Buffalo Bills from the franchise's first day, you are not trimming anything.

Berman has one number ready for Saturday's roll call. Drew Brees threw for more than 80,000 yards, which Berman converted to almost 46 miles of throwing, more than halfway from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. He looked it up, because he is a geography guy.

He also plans to remind Brees that Brown recruited him, and that Brown reached a Rose Bowl before Purdue ever did.