49ers great Roger Craig finally gets the call: He's a Hall of Famer

On July 15, 1983, before Roger Craig's first training camp with the San Francisco 49ers, the Chronicle reported the rookie running back had surprised quarterbacks coach Paul Hackett in the spring with a skill that wasn't evident in college.

Wrote beat writer Ira Miller: (Craig) "appears to be a better pass receiver than the 49ers thought he was."

It's fair to say the 49ers' early impressions were accurate after that initial scouting report was iffy: The second-round pick who had 16 catches at Nebraska retired a decade later as the greatest pass-receiving running back in NFL history.

On Thursday, Craig, 65, the first player to have 1,000 yards receiving and rushing in a season, was finally recognized for his pioneering role in head coach Bill Walsh's West Coast Offense when he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a senior candidate.

Craig is among five members of the Hall's class of 2026, which was announced at the NFL Honors awards show at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. The group did not include former 49ers running back Frank Gore, who was among 15 modern-era finalists but wasn't elected in his first year of eligibility.

Craig will be enshrined 27 years after he first appeared on the ballot following an 11-season career he's often said was fueled by a gruesome broken leg he suffered as a junior at Davenport (Iowa) Central High School. After the injury didn't end Craig's football-playing days, as his doctor had feared, Craig played and prepared with a desire that reflected his determination to maximize his second chance.

Even Ronnie Lott, the 49ers' big-hitting Hall of Fame safety hailed for his competitive fury, viewed Craig as peerless when it came to passion.  

"I've never been around a person that was that intense about the game of football," Lott said last week.

Craig reached the NFL's summit Thursday about four decades after he began his endless training ascents of what came to be known as "The Hill," a lung-burning, 2.5-mile path in Edgewood Park near Redwood City. When Craig wasn't sweating, he was often studying. He routinely arrived at the team facility with the coaches the day after games, four hours before players were due to arrive, to begin investigating the upcoming opponent.

Offensive lineman Randy Cross said Craig set the example for Hall of Fame wide receiver Jerry Rice, who mimicked Craig's Edgewood Park training and his habit of sprinting to the end zone every time he touched the ball in practice.

"The receiver he was out of the backfield, his powerful running style, his hands - everything was special about the way he did it," Cross said. "But I'll always remember him from a work-ethic standpoint almost more than anything else. Jerry got all that from Roger."

On the field, Craig's relentless drive was captured by his upright style, which the Chronicle noted "made him a bigger target" in a scouting report the day after he was drafted. However, Craig, the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year in 1988, viewed his trademark high-knees form as a protective armor. He learned it from his high school track coach, Ira Dunsworth, when he was a star hurdler in Iowa. In the NFL, he used it to run through defenders.

"'I run to protect myself," Craig said in 1985. "The high knees break tackles. They're like a weapon. If my knee hits somebody right, it might go in his chin or head. Guys back off.'"

Yes, Craig was rugged. He was fullback in Nebraska's triple-option as a senior who cleared holes for 1983 Heisman Trophy winner Mike Rozier. And he began his NFL career as a fullback in a backfield that included Wendell Tyler.

But Craig quickly became known as a cutting-edge weapon in Walsh's revolutionary offense, which received a finesse label because it used short passes as an extension of the running game. In 1985, Craig set an NFL record for a running back with 92 catches while rushing for 1,050 yards and adding 1,016 yards receiving. In the past 41 years, only 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (2019) and Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk (1999) have joined him in the 1,000-1,000 club.

However, Craig has been joined by an army of pass-catching backs since his historic season. Before 1985, there had been six 75-catch seasons by a running back in NFL history. That figure today: 78. When Craig retired, he had the most catches (566) and receiving yards (4,911) by a running back in league history. He now ranks 10th and ninth in those categories, respectively.

Craig had two receiving scores when he became the first player to score three touchdowns in a Super Bowl in the 49ers' 38-16 win over the Dolphins in January 1985.

 "People forget that running backs really didn't do that," Cross said of Craig's dual-threat ability. "Now it's taken for granted watching guys like (McCaffrey). Roger was doing it in 1985."

Last week, former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. rented out a steakhouse in San Francisco for a dinner that included Craig and a host of his teammates from the 49ers' dynasty years. It was meant to be a group celebration, but it turned into a night in which they honored a running back who had spent 27 years waiting for his Hall call.

"You would have thought Roger was in the Hall of Fame," former 49ers president Carmen Policy said of the evening. "The way everybody treated him, the way all of us surrounded him. It was our way of saying, ‘As far as we're concerned, you're in it.'"

On Thursday, Craig was honored for his trailblazing brilliance, 43 years after the 49ers drafted him despite wondering if he was one-dimensional. Before his first training camp, Craig had already made some skeptics believers. Not long after, he made history before, eventually, achieving football immortality.

"When we took Craig, we weren't sure about him catching the ball consistently," Hackett said in 1985. "That was the one question. He hasn't been good at it: He's been amazing."

This article originally published at 49ers great Roger Craig finally gets the call: He's a Hall of Famer.