Vinatieri's HOF credentials, Favre's return and more

	Will another Super Bowl game-winner make Adam Vinatieri, who is playing in his fourth Super Bowl in six years, a lock for the HOF? Bob Rosato/SI

MIAMI -- With one more memorable Super Bowl moment -- this time for the Colts -- will Adam Vinatieri push his future Hall of Fame candidacy from the realm of possibility to inevitability?

I don't have a Hall of Fame vote, but if Vinatieri isn't already a near lock for Canton, another Super Bowl game-winner should darn well remove all doubt about the worthiness of the game's greatest clutch kicker -- of any era.

But with just one kicker in NFL history so enshrined -- Kansas City's Jan Stenerud -- Vinatieri refuses to take anything for granted when it comes to the topic of his future induction.

"I still think we deal with the stigma of 'We kick a touchdown,' '' Vinatieri said this week, making light of the decades-old stereotype of foreign-born kickers with limited knowledge of the game. "There's still that old thing, and the old days of, 'Well, they're not really athletes or whatever.'

"We are one guy out of 53 guys who have to do our job to help our team be successful. For us to be any less important, I don't know. I don't want to say that's right or wrong, but there's a lot of games where the outcome depends on the how well a kicker or a punter does his job.''

Vinatieri is playing in his fourth Super Bowl in six years, and the fifth of his 11-year career. He has two Super Bowl game-winning field goals to his credit from his New England days, and Sunday night against Chicago he has a chance to win a fourth ring. Despite that track record, Vinatieri doesn't buy the notion that he should be the second kicker inducted into the Hall.

"Guys like Gary Anderson and Morten Andersen definitely deserve to be there,'' Vinatieri said. "I don't get that vote, and nobody considers me in that decision, but I think it'd be injustice if some guys who played 20-plus years [didn't get in]. Those two guys should go in the first year they have the opportunity. I have a tough time feeling that they don't deserve to be there first.''

• I saw Joe Namath Friday morning, just waiting in a line for a day pass into the Super Bowl media center, where he proceeded to work radio row for hours on end at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Something just looked wrong about Namath having to wait in line for anything in Miami during the Super Bowl. This is where the Namath legend was born 38 years ago, and Namath wouldn't be Namath without Miami. The two are inextricably linked. Seems to me he should have a key to the city, maybe. Nothing as lowly as a day pass to the media center.

Don Banks covers pro football for SI.com.