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Logan Mankins was pissed at me.

At least, I thought he was pissed at me. The offensive lineman was in the middle of a press conference sometime in the 2010s when he called me out for keeping track of his penalties. (In fairness, I kept track of everyone’s penalties. It’s just that he usually was at or near the top of the list on a regular basis because he played, as someone once said, to the echo of the whistle. Ho ho ho.) Needless to say, I was a little taken aback, so I followed him into the locker room during media availability afterward to see if he wanted to talk more about it. He waited a beat, offered a slight smirk, and said something to the effect that he was just messing with me.

It was one of several memorable interactions I had with Mankins from 2005 until 2013 when he was with the Patriots, and one of several reasons why I’ll nominate him (again) for the Patriots Hall of Fame when the committee has its annual meeting next week at Gillette Stadium.

The son of a Northern California cattle rancher, he was a Larry McMurtry character in shoulder pads. A first-round pick out of Fresno State in 2005, it seemed like he was perpetually squinting. He was 6-foot-4-inches and 308 pounds, so he spent a lot of time looking over the heads of reporters off into the distance. And his reticence to say more than two or three sentences at a time added to the cowboy aura. He didn’t speak a lot — especially his first couple of seasons — but when he talked, you made goddamned sure you were going to listen, because he was going to tell you the truth. In an era around Foxborough where a lot of players were spooked into silence — or at the very least, the company line — Mankins was always his own man.

Of course, sometimes that hurt him, like in 2010 when he held out for the first half of the season because of a contract dispute after the team put the franchise tag on him. (He returned in November for a few reasons, not the least of which was that fact that he didn’t want to miss out on a year of service time.) But it never diminished him.

In terms of his on-field production, well, let’s start with this: I have been accused by editors of overusing italics to draw attention to the importance of a phrase. But it’s never been more appropriate when I wrote these words after we found out the state of Mankins’ health following the 2011 season. He played that whole season with a torn right ACL.

Let’s pause for a second to let that marinate a bit.

Ready to move forward? Good. He sustained the injury in the opener against Miami, and played with it all year (only sitting out the regular-season finale when the starters were rested), throughout the playoffs and into the Super Bowl. The following summer, this was part of the exchange he had with reporters:

Q: “People are going to wonder how you played with something like that.”

A: “I don’t know. Put a brace on, tape an aspirin to it and go. … If I can run, I’m not going to sit out any game. I’m here to play football, not to watch and collect a check.”

When it comes to covering the NFL, one thing you learn quickly is that the guards are always the toughest guys on every team. Stephen Neal once said that playing guard in the league is like getting into a car crash on every play. The unimaginable level of brutality and the toll it takes on the body is not natural, and can chase strong men out of the game at a relatively early age. But Mankins lived in the violence for 11 seasons, only playing less than 15 games (of a 16-game season) twice along the way. Former Red Sox broadcaster Ken Harrelson used to describe Carl Yastrzemski as “tougher than a nickel steak.” That’s Mankins.

I loved covering Mankins. He was smart and funny and tough. His greatness wasn’t rooted in a singular moment, or moments. (Unless you count Mankins cracking Denver’s Ebenezer Ekuban in the walnuts as a rookie, a play that immediately endeared him to his veteran teammates and one that cost him $7,500.) It was his consistency. His ability to answer the bell time and again resonated with his teammates; after he was dealt for a fourth-round pick and a backup tight end, Tom Brady grew a beard in silent protest to match Mankins’ occasional scruff.

He and Randy Moss are on the short list of the best New England players of the 21st century not to win a title. Drafted in the spring of 2005 and traded just before the start of the 2014 season (for tight end Tom Wright), he bookended the fallow period between Super Bowl runs for the Patriots. But again, that doesn’t lessen his impact his impact on the franchise; after all, in six of his nine seasons in New England, he made some sort of all-league or all-conference team. He was a bridge guy, as well as a North Star for the rest of the franchise to follow.

There will be others who will be up for induction this year, including (in all likelihood) the greatest kicker of all time in Adam Vinatieri. But in the end, if Mankins does get the votes from the rest of the nominating committee, I’d only ask you to spend a few moments considering his consistency and contributions to the franchise. Mankins wasn’t necessarily an electric talent, but a singular individual who, when things got dicey, wouldn’t hesitate to tape an aspirin to it and go. And that counts for something.

• Hogan and I welcomed Eric Edholm from NFL.com to talk about the Patriots, the draft, and how the rest of the league is shaping up roughly a month before the big weekend. I asked about the possibility of Jacob Rodriguez sliding to the end of the Patriots in the second round. (Spoiler alert: Eric did not sound optimistic.) He also sounds like a big Max Iheanachor to New England guy at No. 31.

• Lots of A.J. Brown conversation in this week’s mailbag. We also discussed Jaylinn Hawkins, Stefon Diggs, the offseason report card for the front office, and much more.

• I was impressed with Julian Hill when I sat down to talk with him a week or two ago. However, I’m still not sure what the plan is at tight end moving forward.

• My colleagues will be at the league meetings early this week. I’ll have a couple of stories for you this week, as well as the mailbag, I’m anticipating. (Get those questions in now!) Eliot Wolf will give a pre-draft press conference on Monday, April 13 in Foxborough, and phase one of the voluntary offseason workouts begin on Monday, April 20.

• Red Sox season has begun.

Until next time.