Tonight could be the night for Sam Mills

“He set the standard for the organization to this day, but also for the people who were there,” Smith said. “Keep Pounding for me as a father is the look you give your son without saying a word. You’re living and carrying on a tradition, and all that entails. It’s about believing in me, but also telling me to tighten it up.

“It stood for more than words you say to get someone to play a good football game. You knew he was facing death, but he was worried about other people. I don’t know that I could have done it. It was never about himself, it was always about what it meant for other people.

“I have quiet times, where I sit and think, or have a drink for him, and shed a tear. Because I know the impact he had on others, and that he told us the only want to get through any adversity is with each other.”

You have to pause when you hear a man like Smith say that, because it carries that kind of weight. And throughout the football world, the respect for Mills as a player is only exceeded by the qualities that made the man.

Longtime personnel man Terry Bradway, now a Panthers consultant, has been in football for more than 40 years. He was there when Mills signed his USFL contract with the Stars in a van, after a tryout in Florida.

Like a lot of people, he gets a little worked up when he talks about Mills, but he appreciates the fact that people are still talking about him.

“Everything about him was right,” Bradway said with a straightforward conviction. “You don’t want that story to die. It’s too powerful.”

That will be true no matter how the vote went, and if Mills fell short, there’s a good chance the historians of the veterans committee will get him to Canton eventually.

If he didn’t fall short, and if he overcame this final hurdle into football immortality tonight, it will create a final chapter that seems appropriate — a Hollywood ending for a script no one could ever imagine to write.

The 2022 Hall of Fame inductees will be announced on the NFL Honors primetime show, beginning Thursday night at 9 p.m. ET on ABC, NFL Network and streaming on ESPN+.