Mike Haynes arrived in the NFL at a very interesting time.A rookie in 1976, Haynes, a Hall of Fame cornerback and member of the 's 100th Anniversary Team, joined the two years before the NFL made several rules to promote the evolution of the pa sing game. Haynes, who won a as a member of the Raiders, would spend the majority of his career playing under the league's new rules, as he was tasked with stopping opposing offenses that were hellbent on making the most of their new opportunities.Haynes, who's on the Board of Directors of the , recently spoke with me about his experiences against certain receivers and offenses during his playing career. That topic led to Haynes making a prediction about how he sees NFL offenses Parry Nickerson Jersey evolving in the not too distant future.Here's a part of my conversation of Haynes, which also included his thoughts on several other different topics, both inside and outside of football.You came into the NFL a couple of years before they changed the rules, so you faced a lot of run-heavy offenses at first. But by the time you retired, Dan Marino was in the league, Joe Montana was winning rings, John Elway was getting started; you saw the entire evolution. During the dawn of the pa sing evolution, which offense or receiver gave you the most i sues? Haynes: When I first came into the league as a rookie, former quarterback Bob Griese had Nat Moore and Freddie Solomon. Neither one of them were lightning fast, but they had a lot of moves. Griese would just throw the ball in a place where only the receiver has a chance to get it. So if I'm on the receiver's left, he's going to throw it to the right, and the guy may have to dive to catch it or he's definitely going to have to extend Justin Jefferson Hoodies Sweatshirts his hands to catch it.When the rules changed, teams started getting smart, and they started getting taller guys. There were already some taller guys in the league like Harold Carmichael. He was the guy, for me, who was the toughest guy to cover because of his height. I'm running side by side Carmichael , and they throw the ball up in the air, and you look back for the ball, that ball is so high in the air, you're going "Where the heck are they throwing it?" And then you keep following the ball, and it drops right into Harold's hands. It was like, "Wow." Any other receiver, that pa s usually would have been an interception for me. But when the guy's 6-foot-8, I have no chance at catching the ball, even though I'm right next to Harold.So I predict that, in the future, there's going to be a lot of guys like LeBron James that could play basketball or football, they're going to play football, not basketball. You have four guys like LeBron James or Harold Carmichael, and you put them on the 10-yard-line, that's a touchdown. You're not going to find defensive backs that are 6-foot-8, that can backpedal and jam and run with those guys. I just don't think you can find them. It almost sounds like what the did with , who was a really good college basketball player before he decided pursue an NFL career.MH: He could have played wide receiver. I guarantee you his strong suit wasn't blocking (laughs). He wasn't big enough. I predict that that's what going to happen in the future, because of the rules, and because people want to see scoring. It's going to be really tough to defend four guys that are really that tall. That's what I think we're going to see in the future.How will defenses react if teams do make a concerted effort to sign taller receivers? Do you think that will lead to teams having considerably more defensive backs on their roster? I remember the year after the drafted Randy Mo s, the drafted several defensive backs to try to slow him down. MH: You could, why not? Can you imagine seeing a team with four wide receivers like that and two running backs like former star Joe Washington? Or former running back Mike Pruitt or Barry Sanders? If you have receivers spreading out the defense, Myron Mitchell Jersey then you get running backs with super good feet and super good balance, they're going to have big holes. I think my prediction is going to come true sooner rather than later.Do you think there's still a place Wyatt Davis Jersey for feature running backs in today's NFL? We just saw carry the to the AFC Championship Game, but Tenne see ultimately fell short against a team that relied on and the pa sing game.MH:I think the running back position has changed, but I think there's a certain kind of running back that's still valued . It's no longer the guy that's just a battering ram. Like John Riggins and Larry Csonka?MH:Shoot, Riggins had the size to be a battering ram, but that dude could run. He was really fast.He didn't run that much in the Super Bowl against your Raiders in Super Bowl XVIII . I think his longest run was eight yards.MH:He was awesome. I wish we had him, that's how much I liked him. Our defense was super fast. That was one of the best defenses of all time. It was going to be hard to run on that defense. Maybe the only running back that I can think of that might be able to run against that defense and had some succe s would have been a guy like Barry Sanders. A guy that can stop on a dime and go the other way and jump over people, that kind of thing. Joe Washington would probably do really well in today's game, because offenses spread out defenses. That guy could run sideways. I played with him in some of these college postseason all-star games, the most amazing running back I had ever seen at the time.Were quarterbacks calling audibles back in those days?MH: My rookie year, Bob Griese was doing that really well. The AFC had quite a few quarterbacks that were good at doing that. The , they were good at doing that. I don't know if Terry was seeing something, but those coaches had him on track to win all the time. With all the weapons he had, he didn't have to be super good (laughs). When in doubt, just throw it to Lynn Swann or John Stallworth or . Those guys were just killer. Franco, all of them. The Steelers were the team to beat in the AFC, almost every year, in those days. Lewis Cine Jersey If a few things went your way against the Raiders in the '76 playoffs, you would have had a shot against the Steelers for the right to play in the Super Bowl as a rookie. MH: The night before the game, I got injured. I was playing catch with the coach's son, and his son threw the ball kind of high, and I jumped up to catch it and something popped in my calf. Overnight, my calf swole up like you would not believe, and I didn't think I was going to play, and I really shouldn't have