Sports Then and Now

The running backs he blocked for are in the Hall of Fame, but 10-time finalist Jerry Kramer is not.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio is where NFL greats take the next step and become immortal legends.  Since opening its doors in 1963, 260 former players, coaches and administrators have received football’s greatest honor, but there is a growing list of seemingly deserving players who for one reason or another have been unable to earn a bust in Canton.

Being recognized as a Hall of Famer is certainly an honor that should be reserved for those few players, administrators and coaches that were truly the best of the best. It should be hard and there should be a thin line between being a great player and earning Hall of Fame immortality.

However, after reviewing all members of the Hall of Fame as well as more than 250 former NFL greats who have not yet earned a spot in Canton, it is clear that the Hall of Fame selection committee has been inconsistent in their choices and not done a good job in ensuring that all deserving players are inducted in a timely manner.

The 2010 Hall of Fame class marks the first time since 2001 that the maximum allowed number of inductees, seven, will receive Hall of Fame busts. In back-to-back years of 2004 and 2005 the committee chose only the minimum of four players despite the fact that 12 players who later were chosen for the Hall of Fame were eligible for induction during those years.

In a previous article I outlined my disappointment that the Hall of Fame committee has often made players wait more than 30 years after retirement before being inducted though they didn’t throw a pass, score a touchdown or make a tackle during that time.

While I generally believe that the Hall of Fame committee has done a pretty good job of making selections of players who are deserving of induction, I did also create a list of the 10 players who maybe shouldn’t be in the Hall.

Below is my list of the 10 players who are not in the Hall of Fame who I believe are most deserving of induction. Several have been tantalizingly close to selection, while others have been annually by-passed in favor of players with similar or lesser accomplishments. Hopefully all of them will one day get the thrill of having their bust immortalized in Canton. Read the rest of this entry →

While Lynn Swann made some of the most spectacular catches in Super Bowl history, his play during the rest of his career is hardly Hall of Fame worthy.

Over the last two years I have spent a significant amount of time analyzing the players that are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and those who have Hall of Fame caliber credentials, but have not been inducted.  It has reaffirmed my belief that there are a lot of deserving football players who have yet to get a bust in Canton. It also has made me scratch my head over a few of the players that have received football immortality.

Overall, I will say that for the most part, the Hall of Fame voters have done a very good job of selecting top players for the Hall of Fame. While I believe there are at least two dozen deserving players who have been overlooked, the number of players in the Hall of Fame that I question is significantly less.

In fact, when I originally created my list of the top 10 players in the Hall of Fame that I think you could argue don’t belong I actually was able to only come up with nine players from the modern era that I really questioned. However, the selection this year of Dick LeBeau provided the 10th name for my list.

In creating my list I did not analyze any of the players from the pre-1950 era who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. My reasoning being that the game during that time period and selection process in the early days of HOF is so different than today that trying to argue for or against certain players from the pre-modern era made little sense.

Instead, players had to have played a majority of their careers after 1950 to be considered for this list.

The one player that this rule may have saved was Bob Waterfield, the former Rams quarterback. I have seen a number of articles in recent years questioning if his numbers justified being in the HOF or if he got in primarily because he was married to then pinup girl Jane Russell.

So, here is my list of players whose Hall of Fame status I think could be questioned. In some cases it isn’t necessarily that I think they don’t belong, but rather question how they could have been inducted before other players from their era or who played the same position.

However, there are a couple that I think were selected purely because of politics and the “scratch my back” network. I’m sure there will be strong disagreement to some of my choices, but remember, these are my opinions and the great thing about having opinions and living in the United States is that everyone is entitled to one and encouraged to share it.

I have given mine, and now I encourage you to share your thoughts and opinions. Read the rest of this entry →

If Floyd Little is deserving of Hall of Fame induction, then why did it take 35 years after his retirement for his name to be called?

This is the first of a series of articles we will post this week that will focus on the Pro Football Hall of Fame in preparation for the 2010 induction ceremony on August 7th.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame Inductions next weekend will again be a special event as seven names will be added to the list of all-time greats.

For some players, such as 2010 inductees Emmitt Smith and Jerry Rice, the wait for Hall of Fame selection is limited to only the mandatory five year waiting period. However, for others, including 2010 inductees Floyd Little and Dick LeBeau, the wait for the call from the Hall of Fame can sometimes take decades.

Later this week I will be posting my picks for the 10 players not in the Hall of Fame who are deserving of induction and the 10 players in the Hall that I think don’t really belong. However, in general I think the Hall of Fame committee has done a pretty good job of putting deserving players in the Hall of Fame.

Where I do think the Hall of Fame committee has been very weak is related to how long it often takes them to finally induct someone who we all know immediately is deserving of being in the Hall of Fame. There are far too many cases in NFL history of clearly Hall of Fame deserving players and coaches who have had to wait much longer than justified before being selected and thus not been able to fully enjoy the honor.

While I have long considered Little to be a borderline Hall of Fame candidate (I ranked him as the seventh most deserving running back last year when I picked the top 25 running backs not in the NFL) and I don’t think that LeBeau belongs simply based on his playing career (I ranked him as the 12th best defensive back not in the HOF), if they were going to get into the Hall I have a problem that it took more than 30 years after they became eligible for them to enter the Hall of Fame.

My personal “sniff test” for picking Hall of Famers has always been the following: At the time of their retirement were they considered someone whose Hall of Fame selection seemed inevitable? Read the rest of this entry →

As usual, the Pro Football Hall of Fame will not be opening its doors to the most deserving candidates come August.

Given their past track record, I guess it should come as no surprise that the voters for the Pro Football Hall of Fame made some bad decisions during their annual selection meeting on Saturday. They didn’t mess up the selection of two deserving first ballot candidates in Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith, but in my opinion the rest of their choices were seriously lacking.

In addition to Rice and Smith, the other members of the 2010 Hall of Fame Class will be Rickey Jackson, Russ Grimm, Floyd Little, Dick LeBeau and John Randle.

Of those other five, in my opinion only Randle was the best player at his position who is not already in the Hall of Fame. Little is among the ten best running backs previously excluded from the HOF, but there are a plethora of more deserving players at the respective positions than Grimm, LeBeau and Jackson.

As has become common place, the Hall of Fame voters overlooked some clearly deserving candidates while selecting others that most people would consider borderline. Read the rest of this entry →

Jerry Rice could be the greatest player of all-time and should get voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday.

On Saturday afternoon all-time rushing leader Emmitt Smith and all-time receiving leader Jerry Rice should officially be able to add the words “Hall of Famer” to their resume. The question is which of the other 15 finalists will be joining them on the platform in Canton.

In addition to Smith and Rice, the other player selected as a finalist in his first year of eligibility is wide receiver Tim Brown.

Last summer I ran an in-depth series looking at each position and breaking down the top 10 players at each position who are not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Below is a rundown of all finalists and my opinion of their worthiness and likeliness to be among the Class of 2010. At the end is my prediction for who I think should be selected in 2010 as well as who I expect the Hall of Fame voters to honor.

Breaking Down the 2010 Nominees (likelihood is gauged only for 2010):

Tim Brown – Wide Receiver/Kick Returner – 1988-2003 Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders, 2004 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Overall Worthiness: B+     Likelihood for 2010: 15%

Tim Brown was an exciting receiver for the Oakland Raiders and ranks fourth all-time in receptions (1,094) and receiving yards (14,934). My biggest struggle with Brown is that while he was always very good, he was never considered the best player in the league. His statistics are impressive, but I struggle with believing he was better than Cliff Branch, Drew Pearson and Harold Carmichael, all of whom were great receivers in an era before receiving stats became inflated. I have no doubt that Brown will eventually get into the Hall of Fame, but given that better receivers (Art Monk, James Lofton, Don Maynard, Charlie Joiner)  waited for years before getting the call, I find it difficult to believe Brown will be selected  in his first year of eligibility. Read the rest of this entry →

Kurt Warner is announcing his retirement after 12 years in the NFL.

As word spread in recent days of the inevitable announcement by Kurt Warner of his retirement, I have been surprised by some questions of whether Warner deserves in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Now that he has officially announced the end of his playing career, I have just one thing to say to those who question his place among the all-time greats: “Are You Crazy?”

I’m not looking to declare Warner among the 10 greatest quarterbacks of all-time (though a case could possibly be made for the lower half of that list), but there is no question that in five years time he will be taking his place among the immortals of NFL history.

In some ways, you could call Warner the modern day Johnny Unitas.

You may recall that after being rejected by his hometown Pittsburgh Steelers, Unitas spent time honing his skills on sandlot fields full of glass and rocks. He then made his way to Baltimore where an injury to starting quarterback George Shaw thrust the 23-year-old into the starting lineup during the 1956 season.

In his second season, Unitas led the Colts to their first winning record in the five year history of the franchise. The next season, Unitas led the Colts to a 9-3 record and their first NFL Championship in what has often been called the Greatest NFL Game Ever Played. Read the rest of this entry →