Hall of Fame tackle Willie Roaf questions whether he’d be in Canton if not for his years spent with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Looking at his body of work, there’s no denying that Willie Roaf is one of the single greatest offensive tackles to ever play the game of professional football. The former New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs veteran started 189 career games over the course of 13 seasons and made 11 Pro Bowls in the process. However, to hear Roaf recount his own story, he believes he needed those final few years in Kansas City to put him over the top of other great tackles who might not ever find themselves enshrined.

“I don’t know if I would be in the Hall of Fame today if I didn’t go to Kansas City and finish off my career there,” he said in a recent interview on the Talk of Fame Network.

Roaf says he was on the verge of slipping as a person and player in his final years at New Orleans, that he needed a new challenge and a reason to mature and move forward in life. Kansas City traded a third round pick for Roaf before the 2002 season started and enjoyed a bounce back effort from Roaf in the process, to the tune of 3 All-Pro seasons in 4 years.

“John Tait was struggling some at left tackle, and we moved John to right. Brian Waters was just starting to become himself. He had moved around, and he moved to left guard. Casey (Wiegmann) was at center, and Will Shields — who I was the runner-up to for the Outland Trophy in college — was at right guard and was a Hall of Famer as well. Man, we had a real good line (when) I got to Kansas City, and I got to get on that grass and save my body some and put together some real good years.”

The Chiefs offensive line from those seasons rivaled not only the best the NFL had to offer in that decade but it stands among the best units ever assembled. Shields and Roaf are already Hall of Famers and Brian Waters also has a serious case to be made for Canton as well. Wiegmann was also a strong performer who manned the middle for nearly a decade.

For young Chiefs fans, all you need to do is look at the current Dallas Cowboys to understand how fun it can be for a fan base to have such an incredible front line. Hopefully the current youth and continuity along the line will allow the current Chiefs line to ascend to new levels of greatness as well.