The Pittsburgh Steelers last year named four new members to their Hall of Honor. Three of them -- Larry Brown, Bill Cowher and Hines Ward -- you’ve heard of. One of them you haven’t.

Elbie Nickel.

Nope, I hadn’t heard of him, either, until one of our loyal readers (Brian Wolf, take a bow) mentioned him.

“Was he the first great tight end?” he asked.

Well, no. But he was the Steelers’ first good one … even though the position wasn’t called tight end when he played it.

As Wolf correctly pointed out, Nickel was a single-wing receiver the first half of his career before the Steelers went to the T-formation in 1952. And then, serving as what we call a tight end today, he became a good pass blocker and solid pass receiver.

Correction: He became an outstanding pass receiver.

He caught 55 passes for 884 yards and nine TDs, all of which were Steelers’ records at the time. Now, look a little closer. The Steelers that season completed 167 passes for 2,504 yards and 21 touchdowns which means … uh-huh, which means that Nickel was responsible for 32.9 percent of the team’s receptions for 35 percent of its receiving yards and 42.9 percent of its receiving TDs.

He was named to the Pro Bowl three times. He finished in the league’s top 10 in catches twice (1952-53), the top 10 in receiving yards three times (1949, ’52 and ’53) and the top 10 in receiving TDs twice (1952 and ’56). He also averaged a whopping 24.3 yards a catch in 1949.

“Tom Fears and Elbie Nickel were the precursors of the tight end,” said NFL historian T.J. Troup, an Elbie Nickel expert who dissected reams of Steelers’ film from the 1950s. “I consider him one of those guys – and it’s a term that always comes to mind – who ‘maximized every skill he had.’

“He wasn’t super silky or fast, but he’d take very short strides and had a chopping running style. This is not Paul Warfield, but he is very smart and seemed to understand the spaces in between defenses.

“The one thing he had going for him was that he’d judge the ball in flight really well and had a burst when he caught it. I’ve seen him on film make one-handed catches when he’d reach up, tip the ball with one hand away from the defender and make the catch. He had exceptional hands and really judged the ball well in flight.”

No need to remind the L.A. Rams. In a game late in the '52 season, Nickel shredded them for 10 catches and 202 yards.

“A 200-yard game at tight end?” said Troup. “I’m not sure Fears ever had a 200-yard game at tight end.”

The following season Nickel put up a career-best 62 catches, a Steelers’ record that stood until Roy Jefferson broke it in 1969. And while he tailed off to 40 receptions in 1954, he produced what former former Steelers’ owner Dan Rooney called “the most famous play we had until the Immaculate Reception” in a game played at Forbes Field.

Don’t remember it? No problem. It’s stitched in Xs and Os on a hand-made fabric hanging from a high wall above a staircase at the Steelers’ Rooney UMPC Sports Complex. It depicts the most memorable play of Nickel’s career, a game-clinching 40-yard reception in a 17-7 defeat of the previously unbeaten Philadelphia Eagles – a catch that vaulted the Steelers into a first-place tie with the Eagles and New York Giants in the NFL’s Eastern Conference.

The people in Pittsburgh would never forget the play or the player, but we have. I had no idea who Elbie Nickel was until Brian Wolf came to my rescue, and my guess is that you didn’t, either. But his 37 career touchdown catches still rank eighth on the Steelers’ all-time list, and his 329 receptions were a Steelers’ record for tight ends until Heath Miller broke it over five decades later.

Elbie Nickel wasn’t a great player, but he was so accomplished that the Steelers named him as one of 33 players to the team’s All-Time Team. I know that’s not enough to get him nominated for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and that’s not what I’m suggesting. But it is more than enough for me … as well as others … to know exactly who he was and what he did.

Follow on Twitter @ClarkJudgeTOF