Mark Gaughan recently crunched some numbers to “prove” that American Football League players were not underrepresented in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Here are some numbers of my own:

The Buffalo Bills were one of the dominant teams in the AFL. They were the only AFL team to make the playoffs four straight years. Their defense, with the likes of Ron McDole and Tom Sestak, in 1964-65 went 17 straight games without allowing an opposing rusher to score a touchdown. On that same defense, linebackers Harry Jacobs, John Tracey and Mike Stratton started 67 consecutive games as a unit, a professional football record.

The Bills won two straight American Football League Championships under Lou Saban, the only AFL coach to achieve that distinction. Yet only two men from the great AFL Bills team are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Billy Shaw and Ralph Wilson. How ’bout them numbers?

Angelo F. Coniglio

Amherst