John Madden Hall of Fame

Now that John Madden has finally been selected to the NFL Hall of Fame, it's time to go over some of the key factors that likely got him in. Most of the major accomplishments, like his Super Bowl win in 1976, are well known. However, some of the less notable achievements may have been the factors that tipped the scale in his favor.For starters, John Madden compiled the greatest regular season winning percentage of any head coach with at least 100 games under his belt. He finished his coaching career with a regular season record 103-32-7. That means he won 75% of his games! Three out of every four games fell into the win column for Mr. Madden. In order for a coach to replicate that level of winning in this day and age he would have average 12 wins per season for eight straight seasons (that's not going to happen).Another one of his impressive achievements had to do with Madden's ability to defeat the very best among his peers. Madden's teams won two out of every three games in which they faced teams coached by fellow Hall of Fame coaches like Don Shula and Chuck Noll. No other coach is more than a handful of games over .500 against that level of competition.If you think about it John Madden's coaching career coincided with the emergence of two dominant AFC dynasties; the Dolphins of the early '70s and the Steelers of the late '70s. Yet somehow, he was still able to keep the , also an AFC team, playing at an elite level for an entire decade.This kind of production is likely what helped Madden finally make it to the hallowed halls in Canton. It's also the kind of information that makes mindless attacks on Madden's worthiness, like the one that Tim Brown hurled at him earlier this week, seem ridiculous.