Pro Football Hall of Fame
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50 free Pro Football Hall of Fame trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Every August, pro football stops to honor its own. A new class of players, coaches and contributors is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the museum in the Ohio city where the league was born, and each new member's career becomes part of the game's permanent record. Only a few hundred people have earned a place, out of the tens of thousands who have played, coached or run teams. This quiz covers both sides of the Hall. Some questions are about the institution itself: where it stands and why, what new members receive, and how the league's earliest days shaped it. Most are about the Hall of Famers: quarterbacks, running backs, receivers and defenders from the leather-helmet era to the 2000s, the coaches and owners who built the league, the firsts and one-of-a-kind careers, and the touchdown and scoring feats that got them elected. It is written for NFL fans of every level. The opening questions are about names most fans know, and later ones reach back to the charter class and the pioneers of the 1920s. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave with a few stories worth retelling on game day.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Ohio city, where the NFL was founded in 1920, does the Pro Football Hall of Fame stand?
Canton
Canton beat bids from Detroit, Green Bay, Latrobe and Los Angeles, helped by its Bulldogs, the league's first repeat champions.
Q 02What color is the jacket each new Pro Football Hall of Fame member receives and wears at later enshrinement ceremonies?
Gold
Gold jackets mark membership for life: earlier inductees nearly always wear theirs on stage when a new class is welcomed.
Q 03Which cornerback, who also played in baseball's World Series, tied a bandana onto his own Hall of Fame bust in 2011?
Deion Sanders
Deion Sanders closed his speech by dressing the bust in his trademark do-rag, and he is the only athlete to play in both a Super Bowl and a World Series.
Q 04Which 49ers receiver, enshrined in 2010, scored a record 208 career touchdowns, 197 of them on catches?
Jerry Rice
Jerry Rice finished 41 touchdown catches clear of second place, having joined San Francisco as the 16th pick of the 1985 draft from Mississippi Valley State.
Q 05Which Jets quarterback, enshrined in 1985, publicly guaranteed an upset win over the Colts before Super Bowl III?
Joe Namath
Joe Namath made the boast three days before the game, then led the heavy underdog Jets to a 16–7 win, one of the great upsets in sport.
Q 06Which Steelers defensive tackle, centerpiece of the Steel Curtain defense, starred in a 1979 Coca-Cola commercial?
Joe Greene
Joe Greene, long known as Mean Joe, showed a gentler side in the ad, which aired again during Super Bowl XIV and won a Clio Award.
Q 07Which Olympic decathlon champion, in the Hall of Fame's first class of 1963, was first president of what became the NFL?
Jim Thorpe
Jim Thorpe won both the pentathlon and the decathlon at the 1912 Olympics before starring for the Bulldogs in the city that later landed the Hall.
Q 08Which Raiders coach, enshrined in 2006, never had a losing season before a long second career as a television analyst?
John Madden
John Madden holds the best winning percentage of any coach with 100 games, and the Madden NFL video games carrying his name became football's best sellers.
Q 09What is named for Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi, winner of five NFL titles in seven years?
The Super Bowl trophy
The Super Bowl trophy took his name in 1970, the year Lombardi died at 57; his Green Bay teams had won the first two Super Bowls.
Q 10Which Bears running back, nicknamed Sweetness, has the NFL's Man of the Year award named in his honor?
Walter Payton
Walter Payton retired as the NFL's career rushing leader, and his death in 1999, after a rare liver disease, raised awareness of the need for organ donors.
Q 11Which three-time MVP quarterback, enshrined in 2016, started a record 297 consecutive regular-season games?
Brett Favre
Brett Favre's streak ran from 1992 to 2010 and ended only when a sprained shoulder kept him out of a game against the Giants.
Q 12The bust of each Pro Football Hall of Fame member, kept on permanent display, is cast in which metal?
Bronze
Bronze is used for every likeness, and the Hall allows no hats or other headwear on its official busts; one sculptor alone has made more than 130 of them.
Q 13Which Steelers running back caught a deflected pass and scored in the 1972 play called the Immaculate Reception?
Franco Harris
Q 21The 1920 meetings that created the NFL were held in an Ohio showroom that sold which make of automobile?
Hupmobile
Hupmobile dealer Ralph Hay, who owned the Bulldogs, hosted the founders, and some of them sat on the cars' running boards for want of chairs.
Q 22Which Packers tackle turned umpire is the only person enshrined in both the Pro Football and Baseball Halls of Fame?
Cal Hubbard
Cal Hubbard entered the football hall with its first class in 1963 and the baseball hall in 1976, as only the fifth umpire so honored.
Q 23Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs, winner of three Super Bowls with Washington, is also in which other sport's hall?
NASCAR
NASCAR inducted Gibbs as a championship-winning team owner, making him the only person in both halls; he won his Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks.
Franco Harris was a rookie when he ran in the ricochet with 22 seconds left, beating the Raiders and giving Pittsburgh its first playoff win.
Q 14Which Giants pass rusher was voted the NFL's Most Valuable Player for 1986 after leading the league with 20.5 sacks?
Lawrence Taylor
Lawrence Taylor, known as L.T., was so disruptive at outside linebacker that he is credited with changing the blocking schemes and formations offenses used.
Q 15Which quarterback, a five-time MVP with the Colts and Broncos, was elected in 2021 after only 13 seconds of debate?
Peyton Manning
Peyton Manning won four of those awards in Indianapolis and one in Denver, and the voters needed less than a quarter of a minute to wave him in at the first attempt.
Q 16Which defensive end, an ordained minister nicknamed the Minister of Defense, starred for the Eagles and Packers?
Reggie White
Reggie White, an ordained Baptist minister, began his pro career in the short-lived USFL and was elected to the Hall posthumously, on the first ballot.
Q 17Which Cowboys running back retired with a record 18,355 rushing yards and later won Dancing with the Stars?
Emmitt Smith
Emmitt Smith took the career rushing record in October 2002 against Seattle, entered the Hall in 2010 and won the dance show's third season in between.
Q 18Which Bears star, once billed as football's most feared man, has the top linebacker award named after him?
Dick Butkus
Dick Butkus appeared on a 1970 Sports Illustrated cover under that billing, and NFL Network later named him the most feared tackler of all time.
Q 19Which football term caught on after Roger Staubach of the Cowboys used it following a 1975 playoff win?
Hail Mary
Hail Mary was the prayer Staubach, a devout Catholic, said he offered as he threw the winning touchdown to Drew Pearson against the Vikings.
Q 20The stadium beside the Pro Football Hall of Fame is named for Tom Benson, longtime owner of which NFL team?
New Orleans Saints
New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson gave the Hall $11 million in 2014, most of it to rebuild the old Fawcett Stadium, which was renamed in his honor.
Q 24Which quarterback, undrafted by the NFL, won five straight Grey Cups in Canada and sits in both countries' halls?
Warren Moon
Warren Moon spent six seasons in the CFL before the Oilers signed him in 1984, and he became the first Black quarterback elected to the Hall.
Q 25After football, Hall of Fame defensive tackle Alan Page of the Vikings spent more than two decades in which job?
Supreme court justice
Supreme court justice Alan Page sat on Minnesota's highest bench from 1993 until mandatory retirement at 70, having earned his law degree in 1978 during his playing days.
Q 26Which Norwegian-born Chiefs kicker, in America on a ski-jumping scholarship, was the first pure placekicker enshrined?
Jan Stenerud
Jan Stenerud was spotted kicking a ball while preparing for the ski season at Montana State, and he went on to help Kansas City win Super Bowl IV.
Q 27Which Raiders punter, the first at his position enshrined, was also the first pure punter drafted in the first round?
Ray Guy
Ray Guy went 23rd overall in 1973 and waited until 2014 for the Hall, whose own historian called him the first punter who won games.
Q 28Which Cowboys receiver, an Olympic 100-meter champion, is the only man with both an Olympic title and a Super Bowl ring?
Bob Hayes
Bob Hayes, nicknamed Bullet, equalled the world record of 10.0 seconds at the 1964 Tokyo Games and earned his ring when Dallas won its first Super Bowl.
Q 29Which running back known as the Kansas Comet, enshrined at just 34, scored six touchdowns in one game as a rookie?
Gale Sayers
Gale Sayers scored a then-record 22 touchdowns in that rookie season for Chicago, the six-score game coming on a muddy field against the 49ers.
Q 30Which Bears return man, enshrined in 2024, ran back the opening kickoff of Super Bowl XLI for a touchdown?
Devin Hester
Devin Hester holds the record for combined punt and kickoff return touchdowns and was the first player enshrined mainly for returning kicks.