Thinking I had a chance to finally prove Bachslunch wrong on a Hall of Fame matter (I didn’t–I thought that the Hall could take seven inductees regardless of whether they are senior candidates or not, but they are considered seperately), I came across this article on the Hall of Fame Web site that outlines the voting process, and lists the Hall of Fame Board of Selectors.

Looking at the list of selectors, a few things jumped out at me:

  • The representative for Atlanta is Len Pasquarelli, who works for ESPN, and if you read ProFootballTalk, you’ll know he has some history of standing up for guys with whom he’s buddy-buddy with their agent (like Todd Pinkston).
  • The representative for the Jets is Paul Zimmerman (aka Dr. Z), who has been writing for Sports Illustrated since 1979
  • The representative for the Patriots is a employee of HBO and Pro Football Weekly
  • The Raiders and 49ers are represented by employees of The Sports Xchange–and another Sports Xchange employee has an At Large spot
  • Also represented in the At Large spots are the San Francisco Chronicle, the Miami Herald (the second Miami Herald writer with a vote), the Florida Times Union and the Los Angeles Times.

This strikes me as a somewhat flawed list–several of the team “representatives” are actually national writers, who are allowed to maintain their spots even after they’ve left their local publication.  Additionally, several of the At Large spots are occupied by people who may have a particular bias for their local team.

I’m not claiming that any of the voters does have an extreme bias–more than they should anyway–after all, I assume one of the reasons for having a representative from each team is to lessen the liklihood of there being claims of an East or West coast bias (and anyone who frequently reads the Star Tribune would likely agree that Sid Hartmann, who represents the Vikings, would probably be amongst the biggest homers on the list).

But looking at the list, I wonder if this is the best methodology for picking who gets into the Hall of Fame?

To keep things level, it would seem to me that each team’s representative should be working in a news outlet that is actively covering that team, rather than allow people who have moved on to national publications keep those spots.

Of course, as Andy pointed out, some of the beat writers might not have the background with all of the players from other teams, and often have enough to do without adding researching players for the Hall of Fame to their list of to-dos.  Still, I think if they are going to have 32 “team representatives” on the list, they should be local guys.

As for the voters who leave for national media outlets, I would consider increasing the At Large spots, and still allowing them to keep their votes–after all, the national media in theory would have more time/resources to look into the full careers of guys.

Additionally, I would consider taking a page out of the Baseball Hall of Fame’s book, and give the enshrinees to the Hall of Fame a say in who else gets in–after all, who better to judge who really is Hall of Fame Worthy than those who played against them?  There’s only so much that writers and reporters can do when it comes to judging the impact that a player had on the game, whereas the players themselves might know who actually impacted the gameplanning versus who may have padded their stats.

What else could the Hall of Fame do to improve the voting process?  Other than realizing that there are some damn good NFL blogs out there that could possibly have a say, that is?  Let us know in the comments.