NFL All-Decade Teams
The NFL All-Decade Teams exist because someone decided that a single season's awards were not enough. Ten separate honorary rosters, one for each decade of professional football from the 1920s through the 2010s, stand as a formal record of the players the sport considered its very best across a century of competition. The selection process is not left to fans or to a public vote. It belongs to the members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee, the same body that decides which players earn football's highest individual honor. That connection raises a question worth sitting with: what does it mean to be named the best of a decade rather than the best of a year? And who gets to make that call?
Ten decades of NFL football produced ten All-Decade Teams, beginning with the 1920s and running forward through the 2010s. Each roster covers a distinct era of the game, from the league's earliest years as a struggling collection of regional clubs to the modern era of national broadcast dominance. The 1920s team honors players from a time when the NFL itself was only just finding its shape. The 2010s team captures the most recent full decade before the list was assembled. Spanning the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s in between, the sequence gives the sport a framework for measuring greatness across radically different versions of the game. A player named to the 1940s team competed in conditions, under rules, and with equipment that a player on the 2000s team would barely recognize.
Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee members are the people who assemble each All-Decade Team. This is not a casual assignment. The selection committee already carries the responsibility of deciding which players are inducted into Canton, making them among the most scrutinized judges in the sport. Applying that same committee to the All-Decade rosters gives the teams a direct institutional link to football's highest honor. A player named to an All-Decade Team has been evaluated by the very people who weigh Hall of Fame candidacies. That overlap shapes how the All-Decade designations are understood within the sport: they are not a separate or rival honor but a complementary one, produced by the same deliberative body and carrying much of the same weight.
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Common questions
What are the NFL All-Decade Teams?
The NFL All-Decade Teams are honorary rosters that recognize the best players from each decade of professional football. There is one team for every decade from the 1920s through the 2010s, giving the league ten teams in total.
Who selects the NFL All-Decade Teams?
Members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee choose the NFL All-Decade Teams. The same body that votes on Hall of Fame inductees is responsible for assembling each decade roster.
How many NFL All-Decade Teams are there?
There are ten NFL All-Decade Teams, covering the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.
What decade does the first NFL All-Decade Team cover?
The first NFL All-Decade Team covers the 1920s, honoring players from the earliest years of the league.
What is the most recent NFL All-Decade Team?
The most recent NFL All-Decade Team covers the 2010s, the last full decade for which a team has been named.
How are NFL All-Decade Teams connected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame?
The NFL All-Decade Teams are selected by members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee, directly linking the honorary decade rosters to the institution that governs the sport's highest individual honor.