L.T. Expects To Be Voted Into Hall

Lawrence Taylor, one of the best defensive players of his generation, is getting his first shot at election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and he insists he deserves to make it.

"I know I belong there." Taylor said. "I just figured it as a given. I don't want to sound cocky, but I expect it."

The linebacker was a major factor when the New York Giants won two Super Bowls in the 1980s, but his problems with drugs could cost him votes among the 36 Hall of Fame electors.

Tatlor insisted he was innocent in his two most recent drug-related arrest, the latest coming this month, but he acknowledged he was an addict.

"If I've been clean for one day or 1,000 years, I'm a recovering addict and that possibility is always going to be there." Taylor said in an interview published Thursday in the Daily News.

Told that some of the electors have said they would have problems putting him in the Hall because of his history of cocaine and crack cocaine problems, Taylor said, "I hate for people to hold me to higher standards than they hold themselves."

"I would take my bad points and shortcomings and my good points and I would put them against anybody out there," Taylor said. "Don't get me wrong. I'm, not saying I'm a saint. ... I'm not given the benefit of the doubt anymore."

'I would take my bad points and shortcomings and my good points and I would put them against anybody out there,' Lawrence Taylor says. (AP)

The voting is Jan. 30, one week before Taylor's 40th birthday. He retired in 1993 after 13 years in the NFL with the Giants.

Taylor's latest arrest in Teaneck, N.J., came after police said they found drugs and drug paraphernalia in his hote room in September, though he wasn't in the room. The arrest could violate an agreement made last year after Taylor pleaded guilty to filing a false federal income tax return, and could result in his going to jail.

Taylor has been in drug rehab several times, both as a player and after his retirement. His All-Pro career was marred by an NFL suspension for violating the league's drug abuse policy.

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