05/01/2026
I have always said Maxie Baughan is the most glaring omission to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Nine Pro Bowls. Seven All-Pro selections across eleven seasons. A championship ring in his rookie year. And almost nobody outside of serious football historians knows his name.
Maxie Baughan is the kind of player who gets lost between the names that define eras — not quite famous enough for casual recognition, but decorated enough that the people who evaluate these things keep circling back and wondering why the Hall of Fame door hasn't opened.
He arrived in Philadelphia in 1960 as a second-round pick and immediately started — nine of twelve games as a rookie, on a team that beat Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers for the NFL Championship. That title remained Philadelphia's last until Super Bowl LII in 2018, which means Baughan was part of something the franchise spent 57 years trying to recapture. Pro Bowl as a rookie. Runner-up for Rookie of the Year. Three interceptions in that Pro Bowl game alone.
The Eagles kept him for six years, sending him to the Pro Bowl in five of them, and during a 1965 game against Pittsburgh he returned an interception for the only touchdown of his professional career, part of a nine-interception team performance in a 47–13 win that set a franchise record.
Then the Eagles started losing and Baughan wanted out.
George Allen was entering his first head coaching job with the Rams and knew exactly who he wanted. He sent two players to Philadelphia and got Baughan, then spent extensive hours in the film room with him — teaching, studying, developing the kind of football relationship that Baughan later said taught him more about the game than anyone else ever had. Allen made him defensive captain and gave him the signal-calling responsibility for the unit. Four more Pro Bowls in four seasons with Los Angeles. Three more first-team All-Pro selections.
The trade that sent his contractual rights to Washington in January 1971 is the kind of transaction that requires three paragraphs to list all the pieces — six players including Jack Pardee, multiple draft picks across two years, picks that eventually became Isiah Robertson and Dave Elmendorf and a chain of other selections that rippled through the early 1970s NFL draft landscape. Baughan's rights, packaged with five other players, generated enough return that Washington essentially rebuilt portions of its roster around the deal.
His career generated that much value. The recognition hasn't always reflected it.
Allen talked him back for two games in 1974 as a player-coach, mostly backing up Chris Hanburger in Washington. Then retirement, final this time.
Eighteen career interceptions. Twenty-four and a half unofficial sacks. Ten fumble recoveries. One hundred and forty-seven games. A career that produced more Pro Bowl selections than most Hall of Famers can claim, built across two cities, under two different coaching philosophies, with consistent excellence that the voters recognized nine times.
The Hall of Fame has not yet agreed with the voters.
