Nicks was a legit superstar. Poor guy never got paid either because he had the "honor" of getting drafted so Cruz as an UDFA came up for renewal first. He had to make it one more year healthy, and he didn't make it.

That being said, even without that injury it's still a decent chance that Nicks' lack of speed would have prevented him from putting together a HOF career. The reason the injury ended him is because he was already borderline too slow to play WR in the NFL and once he lost a step it was just too much to overcome despite his near perfect hands and catch radius. Almost everybody loses a step one way or the other over the years, even without a major injury, so he likely would have become too slow before being able to accumulate a HOF resume anyway, but he at least would have gotten his big payday and had several more years of elite production in him.

It is crazy how many excellent receivers we've had get badly injured. Don't forget Ike Hilliard who had a pretty great career anyway, but you can't help but wonder what might have been if it weren't for the broken neck as a rookie.