The Pro Football Hall of Fame named its 15 finalists for the Class of 2012, with guard Will Shields and coach Bill Parcells being first time finalists (Parcells was technically a finalist before, when coaches did not have to wait the five years, and is apparently considered a first time candidate again).
Joining Parcells and Shields as finalists from the modern era:
Jerome Bettis, RB
Tim Brown, WR
Cris Carter, WR
Dermontti Dawson, C
Eddie DeBartolo, Jr., Contributor
Chris Doleman, DE
Kevin Greene, OLB/DE
Charles Haley, DE
Cortez Kennedy, DT
Curtis Martin, RB
Andre Reed, WR
Willie Roaf, T
Aeneas Williams, CB
The only two we missed on were Aeneas Williams (who we had as a finalist last year), and DeBartolo, Jr. In their places we had picked coach Bill Cowher (who wasn’t even a semifinalist, presumably due to the belief he will resume coaching) and RB Terrell Davis.
The list of finalists will be narrowed to 10, and then down to five on the Saturday before the Super Bowl, and those five will be voted on individually for inclusion along with Senior Candidates Jack Butler and Dick Stanfel.
Follow up in the comments with your thoughts on the finalists…
Recently in our Hall of Fame coverage we seem to be adding individual posts and polls for individual players that are worthy of conversation for the Hall of Fame (ignoring sure things like Brett Favre).
Before last week’s game, Dolphins DE/LB Jason Taylor confirmed that he would retire at the end of the season. He finished his career with 139.5 sacks (6th all-time) in 233 games, 6 Pro Bowls and 3 First Team All-Pro selections. He recovered 29 fumbles (25th all-time) for 246 return yards (2nd all-time) and 6 TDs (1st all-time), and added 8 interceptions, of which 3 were returned for TDs.
The numbers here make me think that it’s less of a question of whether he makes the Hall of Fame, but rather when he makes it–is he a first year guy, or does he have to wait a few years?
Was recently introduced to a style of playoff fantasy football that I had not seen before, and wanted to get some additional opinions on strategy from other readers.
Basically, you pick a full team (2 QB, 3 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Kicker, 1 Def/ST, 1 Wild Card), but you must select one (and only one) from each team in the playoffs–and any person in the league can choose the same guy (ie, everyone would presumably want Drew Brees).
Let’s assume a standard scoring for this (6 pts/TD, 4 pts/passing TD, 1 pt/10 yards rushing/receiving, 1 pt/25 yards passing, etc).
I was shocked when I heard news yesterday about Bill Polian—not that he had been fired, but that apparently Twitter was blowing up with Vikings fans & local sports media wanting to quickly make a move to bring him in as the voice of authority for the team. Digging deeper showed that many other media & fan bases, including Chicago, Oakland, and even Dallas were clamoring over the opportunity to hire a “proven commodity” in Polian.
But they all seem to be overlooking one significant factor – Bill Polian’s track record is generally one of building teams that are great in the regular season, then failing in the playoffs, or ultimately in the big game itself. Essentially he is to football exactly what the local media uses in Minnesota ridicule the Minnesota Twins – regular season success followed by postseason failure.
As one would expect in a week where an 0-13 team finally wins, and a 13-0 team finally loses, picks last week were amongst the worst we’ve seen all season—still, when you’re 11-5 (Tony) and 10-6 (Andy) overall, that’s not a terrible week.
This week, four games are picked differently—about as many as we’ve ever picked separately, and probably enough to give one of us a solid lead heading into Week 17. Or, if things go as normal, we’ll split and still be just one game apart…
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