As Usual, Football Hall of Fame Voters Muck Things Up
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.
Let’s look at the five questionable selections one at a time.
Rickey Jackson: Though a solid linebacker during his career primarily with the Saints and 49ers, I have a hard time believing that Jackson is more worthy of being inducted into the Hall of Fame than Randy Gradishar, Chuck Howley, Sam Mills, Robert Brazile, Chris Hanburger or a number of other talented linebackers who have not yet earned the call from the Hall.
Russ Grimm: I have basically the same opinion about Grimm that I do with Jackson. You can make a Hall of Fame case for him, but is Grimm more deserving than Jerry Kramer, Dermontti Dawson, Walt Sweeney, Bob Kuechenberg or even his teammate Joe Jacoby? In my series last summer on the best players not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I had Grimm as the 15th best offensive lineman not in the Hall of Fame.
Russ Grimm was a good NFL player, but there are many far more deserving offensive linemen not in Canton.
Floyd Little: I think there are better running backs not in the Hall of Fame, but as a senior’s committee nominee, I am glad that Little was finally recognized for a great career that ended 35 years ago. When looking at the running backs, I had Little as the seventh best not in the HOF, so he certainly has Hall of Fame credentials.
Dick LeBeau: My issue with Dick LeBeau has to do as much with the process and structure of the Hall of Fame selections as it does specifically with his worthiness. According to what I have read about the rules for Hall of Fame selection, senior candidates are to be considered for their play on the field. Performance as a coach is to be considered only after a coach retires. For that reason, I have a very difficult time with Dick LeBeau being selected to the Hall of Fame at this time. He was a good NFL player, but he was not a Hall of Fame player on the field. He was named to only three Pro Bowls in 14 years and was never a first team All-Pro. If over the next few weeks he is lauded for both his work as a player and as a coach, then the Hall of Fame needs to immediately change their selection rules and, in my opinion, completely overhaul their selection committee.
John Randle: Of the five selections other than Rice and Smith, I think Randle is the one where they actuallyy got it right. Randle was one of the best defensive linemen in the NFL for more than a decade. He registered double digit sack numbers nine times and 137.5 for his career. He was a Pro Bowl selection seven times and first team All-Pro on six occasions. I had him rated as the best defensive lineman not in the HOF and the third best player at any position.
Of those left out this year, I think Shannon Sharpe is the one who should be most disappointed. He defined the tight end position during his time in the NFL and was the all-time leading receiver for tight ends at the time of his retirement. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t get in last year, but he should have gotten in during his second season of eligibility.
I am now wondering if Sharpe is not getting in because he was loud and boisterous as a player and remains the same as a broadcaster. The Hall of Fame voters often have downgraded players because of how they treated the media or their outspokenness. Giving me particular reason to think this is that in his article prior to the selections, John Clayton said that Sharpe had only a 35% chance of getting into the Hall of Fame.
Considering that he set the standard for his position, I struggle to understand why a member of the committee would say someone like Sharpe would have only 35% chance at induction. I don’t know what it is, but there is obviously something else holding Sharpe out of the HOF.
I know that it will never happen, but in my opinion this year is another excellent example of why the selection process for the Hall of Fame needs to be radically overhauled. It is obvious that those making the choices include personal bias in the decision making instead of simply inducting the best players.
There are literally dozens of players who had better NFL careers than several of the players who will be receiving their Hall of Fame busts in 2010.
It is time for the NFL to take a serious look at how players are selected for the Hall of Fame and make some significant changes.
Of course considering that the NFL is currently struggling on how to divide $5 billion of annual TV revenue without having a work stoppage, I seriously doubt they will be able to reform the Hall of Fame selection process anytime soon.
Link to previous article rating the candidacy of the 2010 Hall of Fame finalists
Link to series rating the best players not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame
I don;t think Pro Bowl/All Pro designations are always the best measure of a player's worth, although they should of course be taken into consideration. many of the writers voting for them didn't see all the players at a time when new coverage was intensely regional, and the same silly prejudices for and against certain players held in the past as today. Lebeau goes in as a great CB who had 62 career INTs on a defense that was solid to great for the entire decade, apart from his coaching skills. Packer Herb Adderly and Colt Bob Boyd were shoo-ins at CB for most of the '60s, playing on consistently great teams. Then there were Mel Renfro, Erich Barnes, and Pat Fischer who had big INT numbers that usually garner Pro Bowl votes, plus the occasional big year from a Bennie McCrae or Bob Jeter to shove LeBeau aside. I have no idea why Howley, Hanburger, and Karras from that era are not enshrined. Karras and Olsen were the best NFL DTs of the '60s–better than Henry Jordan, certainly, and you might put Rosey Grier over him for part of Rosey's career but Karras had a much longer run of excellence. I've never understood how Kramer is kept out, probably for fear of overenshrining Packers of the era. Sweeney and Keuchenberg are also deserving.
I have to disagree with you on Rickey Jackson; he had 128 sacks and was a fearsome menace second only to LT, and probably better on days when LT was hungover. The Sinats went from perennial garbage to a playoff team because of him and the other LBs and a decent defensive line, certainly not because of their great quarterbacking.
Always enjoy these debates.
Some comments:
–Rickey Jackson's (0/6/none postseason honors) election actually falls reasonably in line with peer HoF 80s-90s LBs such as Andre Tippett (2/5/80s), Derrick Thomas (2/9/90s), and Harry Carson (0/9/none) as well as reasonable HoF LB wannabes Charles Haley (2/5/none) and Kevin Greene (2/5/90s). I think they all belong in. Unlike in past eras, the HoF voting committee is deciding the best of the second-tier LBs of the 80s-90s deserve membership, and I agree — instead of denying earlier LB equivalents such as Chuck Howley, Chris Hanburger, Robert Brazile, Maxie Baughan, and Randy Gradishar, these guys are getting in. Jackson also had a reputation as a solid all-around LB who was a terrific pass rusher, decent in pass coverage, and very good against the run, and a solid all-around game usually counts in favor of LBs with the voters.
–Russ Grimm has a relatively short career with a high peak, and his postseason honors (3/4/80s) aren't severely out of place compared to other HoF guards. He's certainly not the best OL in the HoF, but he's a perfectly reasonable choice. Comparing him to Dermontti Dawson can be misleading, as Dawson hasn't been HoF eligible for very long, and his time should come soon enough. Is Grimm better than Jerry Kramer or Walt Sweeney or Ed Budde or Dick Stanfel? Perhaps not, but I don't see that adding Grimm to this logjam makes things any better — in fact, that would suggest a reasonable floor that justifies a case for these other guard hopefuls. I say get them all in instead of increasing the injustice.
–While one might perhaps consider Floyd Little to have been the 7th best RB not in the HoF, one might also ask why he belongs in — especially since RB is arguably the most over-represented position in the HoF. Unfortunately, one can easy wonder what sets Little apart from Larry Brown, an almost exact contemporary who has stats very similar to Little's — and who nobody seems to think is an unjustly neglected HoF snub.
–Agreed about Dick LeBeau re the HoF. As a player, he's just not worthy. As a coach, he's got knocks against him as well as assets. As an innovator who is credited with inventing the zone biltz, maybe so. In that case, he should be in as a contributor, not as a player.
–John Randle certainly belongs in (profile is 6/7/90s, which is terrific for a DT of the era). His major knock is poor play against the run, but that's a HoF delaying point, not denial point, when one has this good a postseason honors profile.
In addition, Jackson and Grimm have been eligible for a good while without being elected, and the perception likely was that it was "their turn." This apparently happens sometimes in HoF voting.
More to come.
Bobby Davis–
I don't agree with the observations made about the relative relevance of postseason honors. In the case of defensive players and o-linemen, it's the only tangible way one can do comparisons.
And I'm not at all taken with raw INT numbers alone as a reliable indicator of a DB's worth. Compare Bengals CB teammates Lemar Parrish and Ken Riley — when they were teammates, Riley had significantly more INTs while Parrish got the pro bowl nods. This suggests to me that QBs preferred to take their chances against Riley rather than Parrish. And given that Dick LeBeau got a bunch of INTs while playing alongside first Dick Lane and then Lem Barney (both with more postseason honors than LeBeau) as CB teammates suggests that LeBeau was the preferred target of the day's QBs here. And please note well that preventing a completion (whether by good coverage or deflections) is every bit as effective as an INT and likely involves less risk — one might gamble and go for the INT and get it, or miss and allow a touchdown, whereas if you cover the receiver like a blanket, you usually don't even draw a throw in your direction. And that's a really good thing. But how does one recognize a great cover back without counting numbers? I say via solid postseason honors. For this reason, I consider lots of postseason honors a good thing, lots of postseason honors with a lot of INTs a good thing, but lots of INTs with minimal postseason honors not such a good thing.
Shannon Sharpe's waiting a bit before he gets elected mirrors the pattern all HoF TEs have experienced. No TE has ever gotten elected earlier than their 3rd eligible year (Kellen Winslow), and most waited until close to the end of their candidacies, including TE no-brainers such as Mike Ditka, Jackie Smith, Dave Casper, and John Mackey. Especially given that Sharpe was a poor blocker (in fact, he considered this duty beneath him and is on record as saying so), it's not clear that his being delayed a few years is an injustice. He'll get in sooner or later anyway — likely sooner — and surely deserves to.
Bobby Davis–
Several things:
–of the 5 DBs mentioned in the post above with Dick LeBeau (0/3/none), only Herb Adderley (4/5/60s) and Mel Renfro (1/10/none) are in the HoF. Bobby Boyd (3/2/60s), Erich Barnes (1/6/none), and Pat Fischer (2/3/none) are not — and that's another reason why it's hard to fathom how LeBeau got in ahead of all these players.
–One can certainly make a good case for Merlin Olsen (5/14/60s) being the best DT of the 60s, but Bob Lilly (7/11/60s) certainly belongs at the forefront of any such discussion well ahead of Alex Karras. And it's hard to see any argument that Karras (3/4/60s) was even a better DT than Henry Jordan (5/4/none) — in fact, Jordan was named a 1st team all-pro two more times than Karras, and went to the same number of pro bowls. Karras has some additional big baggage in that he was suspended for a year by the NFL for betting on games — the same thing that got Pete Rose on the ineligible list for HoF consideration in his sport. And Rosey Grier (1/2/none) isn't even on the same radar screen as these other players.
–However, I too don't see why Chuck Howley and Chris Hanburger aren't in the HoF, and add Maxie Baughan, Robert Brazile, Randy Gradishar, and a few other LB names to this list. OLBs from the era are criminally under-represented in the HoF.
Bobby Davis–
Jerry Kramer’s omission from the HoF is an interesting and unusual case, and the reasons voters have passed on him may include the fact that he only went to 3 pro bowls, his having missed half of 1961 and most all of 1964 due to injury, his authorship of the tell all book “Instant Replay” which may have ruffled some feathers, his inclusion in an all first 50 years of the NFL team roundly criticized by insiders as a botch job, and the perception among some HoF voters that he was no better a player on his own team at his own position than Fuzzy Thurston and Gale Gillingham. Not sure if I agree here, but that may likely be the thinking.
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