Pat McAfee, Marc Bulger Among Initial Group of Nominees for Pro Football Hall of Fame

A couple Mountaineers are once again on the initial list of modern-era players nominated for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. On Wednesday, Pat McAfee and Marc Bulger were among the 167 former players nominated to be part of the 2025 class.

This is the third straight year McAfee is a nominee. When he was informed of the news during an episode of the Pat McAfee Show last year, he responded in his own unique way, saying he doesn’t deserve the honor. “Don’t vote me in, but this is cool to even be acknowledged,” he said at the time.

McAfee also added “did not play long enough” as why he does not feel he deserves to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And for as cool as to even be recognized at this level of the nomination process, McAfee is likely right that his career length will be held against him when it comes time to narrow these nominees down to 25 in November and then cut that down to the list of finalists to be considered.

The boisterous punter, who also kicked field goals at WVU and is the university’s leading scorer, shockingly decided to retire after the 2016 season. McAfee later explained that he was probably looking at a surgery for an injury in order to keep playing back then, which played into his decision to embark on building his media empire at just 30-years-old. McAfee did earn NFL All-Pro honors once and was named to the Pro Bowl twice in his 8-year career. He also punted and kicked off for the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV.

While it might be a long shot for Bulger to advance through the next round of cuts, he’s one of only 10 quarterbacks to be included to this point.

As far as Bulger’s professional resume, he threw for 22,814 yards, 122 touchdowns and completed 62.1% of his passes in eight seasons as a member of then St. Louis Rams. Bulger assumed the starting role after Hall of Famer Kurt Warner moved on. Warner had led the Rams to two Super Bowl appearance, won one title and earned an MVP prior to Bulger taking over. Bulger spent one season with the Baltimore Ravens, but did not see the field.

Marc Bulger was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA and played quarterback for the prestigious Central Catholic High School in the mid 1990s before attending West Virginia from 1996-99. At WVU, Bulger held a 6.16 completion percentage, threw for 8,153 yards and scored 59 touchdowns with 34 interceptions. He then got drafted by the New Orleans Saints in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft before eventually playing for the Rams.