Well, the 2012 season is over. By and large the Twittersphere would seem to indicate that people are reasonably satisfied with the Super Bowl they just finished watching. New York and New England put on quite a show again as Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning once again edged out Tom Brady and Bill Belichick in an exciting game that came down to the last play.
That result seemed more satisfying to people than the results of Saturday’s Pro Football Hall of Fame voting. From the exclusion of Cris Carter, Andre Reed, Bill Parcells and Will Shields to the inclusion of Cortez Kennedy or Chris Doleman, most fans seemed to be upset about something – and with the immediacy of the Internet, many of them decided to let the voters know they were upset.
Some spewed epithets. Others called for entirely new voting panels. Most would benefit their arguments by at least spelling correctly the names of the candidates they support … but I digress.
At least a couple of voters invited discussions with the fans, acknowledging both the voters’ frustrations and, notably in some cases, even their own. Peter King from Sports Illustrated noted that all six players who were selected ultimately deserve to be inducted to the Hall – and on that I agree with him. There isn’t anyone going to Canton in 2012 who I would argue does not belong there.
I would say, however, that I don’t think they are necessarily the six MOST deserving players. And I don’t know that King would disagree with that either. He notes in another tweet specifically on the wide receiver logjam: “Seems a disagreement over which of the two – Carter, Reed – is most deserving.” And in another, in response to criticism from a fan who called for an entirely new panel of voters, he notes: “Not sure new panel could bridge Reed/Carter gulf.”
That’s also a fair point. Throw in Tim Brown, whom I argued at this linked post is the most qualified of the three, and you’ve got a situation where fans are perplexed and frustrated – and so are King and other voters.
That’s a problem. You’ve got three deserving candidates who, from the way it sounds, are not being held out of the Hall of Fame on merit, but on the inability of voters to come to a consensus around getting one of them in now so they can narrow the field and improve the odds of the other two in later years.
That becomes important as those guys’ careers become more and more memory and as those wide receivers playing now benefit from a more pass-happy game. Current players – and even some who have recently retired – who in some cases were not nearly the players that Brown, Reed and Carter were, put up stats that equaled or even exceeded them, simply because there were more opportunities. Guys who catch 100 passes a season were once a rarity. Now it happens almost every year.
So what do you do?
Well, at least one guy on Twitter suggested an entirely new voting panel. I think that’s going overboard. I believe the voters, by and large anyway, are dedicated, well-meaning, knowledgeable and trustworthy. Or at least I will believe that until I’m told otherwise. But what about some new panelists or an expansion of the voting panel? Major League Baseball has more than 1,000 voters. Does that make their process better? Arguable. And any new voter still is going to have to deal with the fact that there simply are a lot of qualified players right now, maybe more than ever.
In fact, that alone might be part of the problem. It’s always said that players are bigger, faster, stronger and more talented as a whole these days than they were in the past. These guys can afford to train year-round and don’t have to get jobs like their predecessors most often did through probably the early 1980s.
Maybe we have to face the fact that either A) The Hall needs to increase its class size and let more players in or B) Really tighten up the standards, realizing that the Hall is for the absolute best of the best of the best and acknowledge that, as such, some – often many – great, very qualified candidates are going to end up on the outside looking in.
I don’t know what the answer is. I’m hoping to do some digging around over the coming weeks and months to see if there are any great ideas out there. If you readers have any thoughts, please feel free to post them below.
In the meantime, let’s look at the good that was done on Saturday. Even though many of us agree that the six guys who will be inducted this summer might not be the first six guys we would have expected or hoped the voters would elect, they still did some good work.
Going into this weekend, the offensive line logjam was equally as troubling as the wide receiver one remains. Had Dermontti Dawson and Willie Roaf not been elected, they would still be on the board next year with returnee Will Shields. As it sits, Shields will be joined next year by Larry Allen and Jonathan Ogden. You could induct an entire class of Dawson, Roaf, Shields, Allen and Ogden, using up all of the available modern-day candidate slots, and nobody could say any of the candidates did not deserve to be there. But voters took care of two of the three this year.
They also started to clear up a defensive line mess. While I think Charles Haley was more deserving than Cortez Kennedy or Chris Doleman, I have no issue with the latter two being inducted. And that also loosens another logjam that would have been created if all three had been on the board as Michael Strahan and Warren Sapp join the list of eligible candidates next year.
So a fair amount of good was done this year.
Others have argued that Parcells and/or DeBartolo belong. Maybe they do. But with the other finalists this year and some of the other factors involved, I don’t have a problem with them waiting another year or two years. I’d take one or two of the three wide receivers as my next “in” over the two of them.
Regardless, at a limit of five modern-day candidates per year, we’re almost inevitably going to be having this conversation year after year after year. And while I think it is okay to be frustrated, I think calling for a voting panel or yelling epithets at the selection committee over Twitter is the wrong way to attack the problem, at least in part because it seems at least some of them are frustrated by what is going on too.
I have been following these elections with some interest since 1994 and the controversies and criticisms about the results, process and voters occur almost every year as do the calls for allowing for more selection slots, have more voters, include players, poll the public, more open process etc…. Ah to remember the arguments over the senior candidates (one is not enough, who was nominated), Swann, Eller, Guy, Carson, Mont , not enough Raiders, Cowboys, Vikings (add your favorite team here). And having also watched the HOF election process for the other major sports I continue to think that pro football HOF does have the best process in place. The charges and complaints (often by those in the media, public and in cyberspace who have no idea how the elections are conducted and the limited spaces for electing players each year) are just common when you have so many deserving players and so few spots.
Also several years ago the size of the panel was increased to 44 that brought new and more diverse people into the room as voters, which I believe was helpful to perhaps bring some fresh perspectives into the mix and break possible voting blocks/logjams among voters. The number could be increased but not at the expense or challenge of potentially losing what I believe to be the important role of a face to face meeting to discuss the candidates and vote, something baseball loses with 1000 mail in ballots. One idea I had was to rotate voters with staggered committee terms so perhaps have a pool of 60 voters but individuals who serve 4-5 year terms on a committee of 44 people, then voters would be off the committee for a few years replaced by someone else from the pool. That way the history of the debates are maintained year to year (with majority returning for each year), but also bring in fresh (or refreshed) voters each year and not the same group of 44 year after year.
Fans always seem to get very up in arms about the announcement, but I completely agree with Paul’s point. When there are so many deserving candidates and only 5 get in, that is just going to happen. One thing that really annoys me every year though is how biased the average fan is toward offensive players, especially at the skill positions.
This year seems to be no different with a huge group of fans wondering why Cris Carter didn’t get in, and many saying he should have made it in over Chris Doleman or Cortez Kennedy. Both Kennedy and Doleman were dominant at their positions for several years, and deserve to be in. Defensive players, even those on bad teams, deserve recognition and I’m glad that the hall balanced things out again this year.
BSLO and Paul, I agree with much of what both of you are saying. I’m not sure any of the ideas I threw out there in the post would actually solve anything. I do think there is a legitimate problem at play with the selectors and their inability to figure out the wide receiver position. Maybe it will just work itself out over time, but there is something weird about Irvin being in, Carter, Reed and Brown all being out. Swann being in, Cliff Branch being out. It’s a position where the panel has had a long-term problem with inconsistency and it becomes more important as the NFL becomes more of a passing league.
BSLO, to your point about the bias of the average fan, what drives me as crazy as you are driven nuts by their bias toward offense is the bias and inflated opinion they have of guys who played for the team they like. Saw people over the weekend arguing for Bill Romanowski over Will Shields or for other guys who were barely even good over guys who were inducted.
HOF voters (right or wrong) have always given heavy weight to playoff numbers and SBs over long career numbers. And that includes all players but especially the number driven offensive players at QB, WR and RB. So I do not find it weird that Irvin and Swann are in while Carter et al. and Branch wait. If I am going to write a story about the history of the NFL in the 1970s it would be sure to include Swann but perhaps not Branch. Same for the 1990s with Irvin and not Carter. And you are right the number of WRs with huge career rec (900+) in this era means it is getting harder to separate many of them. I do believe at some point the current three WRs will get sorted out remembering that both Carter and Reed made the final 10 – a clear path to eventual election. It makes sense that fans favor players they followed especially when those fans fail to understand how hard it is to get in the HOF, the small number of slots, and just how many very good players (but not great players) are in the league at any given time – much of this is also driven by the web, blog and twitter world we now all live in where it seems everyone has an opinion even as uninformed as it may be.
Irvin, at time of his induction, was 3rd all time in 100 yard receiving games (47) , 3rd all time in YPG receiving(74.9) among retired players behind Jerry Rice(75.6) and Lance Alworth(75.5) and stat wise the 2nd greatest WR ever in the playoffs behind Jerry Rice.
Even more impressive considering Aikman was not a stat QB and all the rushing yrds Emmitt Smith was racking up. You can see why that trio of Aikman/Smith/Irvin was so devestating to opposing defenses.
More importantly, without Irvin there is no “Team of the 90’s” in Dallas and say goodbye to those (3)SB rings if Irvin is not in that line-up.
Haley is an astonishing omission. He was by far the best front seven player on those 49er teams that won (2)SB’s and played in (3)consecutive NFC Championship games from 1988-90 and flat out was the missing piece and best defensive player on the Dallas Cowboys from 1992-94 in which they went to three consecutive NFC Championship games and won (2)SB’s.
He’s still the only player with (5)SB rings and also won two NFC DPOY awards, in 1990 with SF and 1994 with Dallas.
Swann epitomizes my saying “it’s the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Great”. Maybe he wasn’t that great a player in the regular season, but thinking about him and his legacy, it would seem ludicrous for him not to be in the Hall of Fame.
Re Michael Irvin being in the HoF and the Carter/Reed/Brown trio not — there’s a really good reason for this. Irvin retired earlier than these three and beat the logjam in. I think all four are HoF deserving, of course.
Okay, I’ll grant that Irvin might not have been my best example. But I stand by the Swann conundrum. Not necessarily that he shouldn’t be in the Hall, but that he illustrates the crux of the problems HOF voters have had with creating any kind of consistent pattern in which wide receivers make it into the Hall. Is postseason success alone enough to get in? What kind of regular season does a guy have to have in order to cancel that out? And the Cliff Branch argument: Branch played longer, dwarfed Swann’s stats in receptions, yards and touchdowns. Branch played in more Pro Bowls, had more 1st team All Pro honors and also played in three winning Super Bowls — And while his highlights weren’t as flashy as Swann’s were, he was very productive in two of the three Super Bowls as well.
I cannot really say I am a fan of Charles Haley’s Hall of Fame case.
However, it really does make me wonder: Why do voters snub somebody like Ken Anderson for not winning a Super Bowl or Andre Reed who was on those Buffalo Bills teams and they ignore Charles Haley, who won five rings. It really does not make sense to me.
I am glad Dawson got in. Now it’s time to get Tingelhoff in. Unfortunately, the Seniors logjam in my opinion is even greater than the wide receiver logjam and it doesn’t help that three of them have been denied since 2008.
I cannot say that if it were up to me, there would have been a class of seven and the five selected would look much different. Nonetheless, everybody who get elected deserved it, in my opinion.
“but that he illustrates the crux of the problems HOF voters have had with creating any kind of consistent pattern in which wide receivers make it into the Hall. Is postseason success alone enough to get in?”
The same problem (playoff success, awards, career numbers) also plagues QBs, RBs, TEs, DL/LB (sacks) and DB (interceptions).
“However, it really does make me wonder: Why do voters snub somebody like Ken Anderson for not winning a Super Bowl or Andre Reed who was on those Buffalo Bills teams and they ignore Charles Haley, who won five rings. It really does not make sense to me.”
Because there is no set measurable or definable criteria for election to the HOF; many will point at Haley’s short career, lower career sack numbers and lack of pro bowl/all pros as evidence of a weaker case for election. Others place a higher value on his 5 SBs and key role/leadership on the 49er and Cowboys championship teams. And lets be frank as the voters are humans and as writers some may clearly hold a bias against players like Haley or coaches like Parcells who treated the media with open dislike. When a player or coach has qualifications with any weakness it is all to easy to not elect them then make a reach and select them. And lets remember although Haley and Parcells did not get elected this year both will do so in the coming years so perhaps the important thing to remember is not when you get elected (including as a 1st time selection) but that you get elected.
As to Andre Reed if he was the only WR on the ballot I am quite certain he would have been elected by now, but I understand how some voters would prefer Carter or perhaps even Brown over Reed. Remember with 44 voters all it would take would be for a handful of voters to choose Carter over Reed to split the vote so neither gets from the final 10 to the final 5.
comments in Peter Kings’ MMQB column today on the election process and the ongoing debates…
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/peter_king/02/12/eli/2.html
Peter Kings appears to be having a meltdown over his role as a HOF voter and potential for stepping down.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/peter_king/02/14/hall-of-fame/index.html?sct=nfl_t11_a1