I was worried that this would happen.

I was worried that, with the fans doing the voting, the late Jim Nance would get the nod over Jon Morris as this year’s inductee to the Patriots Hall of Fame.

Had the writers been doing the voting, it wouldn’t have happened.

It’s not that Nance doesn’t deserve to get in. It’s that he shouldn’t have gotten in before Morris.

Nance was a very good player. Morris was better. And for a longer period.

But Nance, because he was a running back, is better known than Morris, who toiled in the comparative anonymity of the offensive line.

A bruising runner, the 6-1, 240-pound Nance compiled statistics that catch a fan’s eye.

He led the AFL in rushing in both 1966 and ’67. His 1,458 yards and 11 touchdowns in 14 games in 1966 – when he was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player –– were team records for nearly 30 years, until Curtis Martin, playing a 16-game schedule, broke both marks in 1995, when he gained 1,487 yards and scored 14 TDs.

Nance was the Pats’ rushing leader for six straight years – from his rookie year in ’65 through 1970 – and is the second-leading rusher in team history, his 5,323 yards trailing only Sam Cunningham’s 5,453. Nance had 45 career rushing touchdowns – also a team record – to Cunningham’s 43.

But there’s a certain irony, in that Nance wouldn’t have had those kinds of stats had it not been for the blocking of Morris, who anchored the Patriots’ offensive line at the center position from 1964 through ’72. In 1975, Morris was traded to Detroit, where he started every game for the Lions for three years. He finished his pro career in 1978 with the Chicago Bears.

For six straight seasons, from his rookie year in ’64 through 1969, Morris was chosen to play in the AFL All-Star game. In 1970, he was a member of the AFC squad in the first Pro Bowl against the NFC.

Among Patriots players, only John Hannah – a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame – has appeared in more postseason all-star games (9) than Morris, who was the only New England player selected to the Pro Bowl in 1970.

In contrast, Nance was chosen for just two AFL All-Star games, in 1966 and ’67, when he led the league in rushing.

Interestingly, both Nance and Morris were drafted earlier by NFL teams than they were by the Patriots, at a time when the AFL and the NFL had separate drafts.

A standout at Holy Cross, Morris played in both the College All-Star game and the Senior Bowl. He was drafted in the second round by the Packers, coached by the legendary Vince Lombardi, who wanted Morris to step in as the starting center in Green Bay. The Pats didn’t pick him until the fourth round.

Nance had been a star at Syracuse, leading the Orangemen in rushing as a junior in 1963 and then tying Jim Brown’s school record for touchdowns (13) as a senior. He was drafted in the fourth round by the Bears in 1965 while the Patriots, assuming Nance would sign with Chicago, didn’t draft him until the 19th round, when they’d already picked 29 players.

But Nance and Morris opted for the AFL for the same reason – they thought they’d have a chance to play right away with the Patriots.

“Honestly,” Morris said, when I spoke with him a few months ago on the phone from his home in South Carolina, “I didn’t have the self-confidence to play for the Packers. I didn’t think I was good enough.

“Lombardi called me on the phone. He said he’d give me a two-year, no-cut contract and told me that Jim Ringo wasn’t going to be there. But I figured that was just ‘coach-talk.’ I knew [Patriots coach] Mike Holovak. There was a ‘comfort factor’ involved.”

But Lombardi was being straight with Morris. Ringo, who’d been Green Bay’s starting center since 1953, and played in seven Pro Bowls, was traded to the Eagles prior to the ’64 season, in part because he’d brought an agent with him to discuss contract terms with Lombardi.

Morris, with a no-cut contract – remember, the AFL and NFL were battling each other to sign the best players in those days – likely would have taken Ringo’s place in Green Bay. As it was, the job went to Ken Bowman, picked in the eighth round that same year (’64) out of Wisconsin.

“Everybody has their ‘what if’ moment in life,” Morris said. “Look what likely would have happened if I’d gone to Green Bay. I probably would have played in one of the most famous games of all-time – the ‘Ice Bowl’ against Dallas for the NFL championship in 1967. The Packers won three straight NL championships from ’65 through ’67 and also won the first two Super Bowls.

“On the other hand,” Morris continued, “I would have had to live in Green Bay, and I’d never have met my wife, Gail.”

Morris was the best player on some bad Patriots teams in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

“I always thought things were going to get better,” he said of his years in New England, “but they never did.” Let there be no mistake – Nance is not a bad pick for the Patriots Hall of Fame. But Morris would have been better.

jdonalds@projo.com