I don't want to talk about the Colts-Jets game, so I'm not going to. I can't really claim to be proud of my 1-3 weekend in the wild card round, so there might not even be any picks coming your way for the divisional playoff games. Instead, today we're going to break down the list of finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which were announced yesterday.
As I suspected, Ray Guy didn't make the cut. Instead, the list is incredibly loaded with a lot of familiar names from the late 80s and early 90s, as well as the two senior candidates that no one has ever heard of. The rules call for only four to seven of the 17 guys (of which probably 15 should be Hall of Famers) to get elected the day before the Super Bowl. I never really questioned this rule until Sports Illustrated brought it up after Don Coryell died, but why is the class size so small every year? There are 22 starters for each team in every NFL game, which means that 704 different players started every week in the NFL this season. But the Football Hall of Fame considers all of the players, as well as all of the coaches and contributors, at once, and limits the number of people who can get elected to 4-7. Say what you want about the Veterans Committee for the Baseball Hall of Fame, but that at least has a separate managers/executives ballot, as well as one for the older players. They're not all clumped together with the modern-era players like football does it. And would it really make a difference if they decided to put in nine guys one year?
Anyway, that's a discussion for another day. This year's ballot is headlined by first-year eligible finalists Deion Sanders, Marshall Faulk, Curtis Martin, Jerome Bettis and William Roaf. All five of these guys will probably get in eventually, but only two (Sanders and Faulk) should be elected on the first shot. I'd be OK if they put Roaf in this year, too, but Martin and Bettis definitely need to wait their turn. However, with all the Pittsburgh guys on the committe, I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to sponsor a "Bus" trip to Canton in August. Nine of the other finalists have all been finalists before, including Cris Carter (why isn't he in yet?) and Shannon Sharpe (ditto). The only non-player on the list is NFL Films founder Ed Sabol, who's a Hall of Famer in his own right, but will not and should not be inducted this year.
The full list of finalists is Sanders, Faulk, Martin, Bettis, Roaf, Carter, Sharpe, Sabol, Tim Brown, Dermontti Dawson, Richard Dent, Chris Doleman, Charles Haley, Cortez Kennedy and Andre Reed, as well as senior candidates Chris Hanburger (a linebacker for the Redskins in the 70s) and Les Richter (who played for the Rams in the 50s). I'm going to pretend this is baseball and I get to vote for 10 guys for a second.
My ballot would look like this:
Sanders, Faulk, Carter, Sharpe, Haley, Dent, Roaf, Brown, Bettis, Dawson
It was tough to pick only 10 (and leave out Andre Reed and Cortez Kennedy), so I can't imagine what it's like for the committee of 40 to narrow it down from 15 to 10, then 10 to 5. That's another part of the problem. They narrow down the 15 to five, then vote on each of the five individually and whoever gets 80 percent is in. But the two senior candidates aren't considered until the end, when all they need is the 32 "Yes" votes to get elected, giving them a much better shot at getting in. (Again, I have no problem with considering the senior candidates separately, but don't pretend they're a part of the same process as everybody else when they're not.)
This committee surprises us at least once every year (not just with who gets in, but with who they get in over), so it's risky business predicting who's going to get in. But I'll give it a shot anyway. Deion Sanders and Marshall Faulk are such clear first-ballot Hall of Famers that it would be shocking (and you'd know something shady's going on) if they didn't make it. To fulfill the yearly offensive lineman quota (I'm not really sure what the obsession with offensive linemen is, or why they hold it against the skill position players), I'll say Dermontti Dawson gets in. And after years of getting snubbed, this is finally the year for Cris Carter. I suspect they didn't want to put him in before Jerry Rice, so now that Rice is in, things should be easier for Carter. They won't want to go with four offensive guys, so Shannon Sharpe once again will be left out in the cold. I think the fifth modern-era guy will be one of the defensive ends: Richard Dent or Charles Haley. I'm going to go with Dent. The MVP of Super Bowl XX, he's been a finalist more times than I can count and now might finally be his time. Mike Singletary was the leader of that 46 Defense, but Dent was just plain scary. Nobody could rush the passer like he could. (If the Bears reach the Super Bowl, there's a 100 percent guarantee that Dent gets in.) Finally, the senior candidate to get elected will be Richter. I knew absolutely nothing about this guy until reading his bio online, but the Rams traded 11 players to get him, he was All-NFL six years in a row, and he had 16 career interceptions.
If it was me voting, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2011 would be Deion Sanders (again, the committee doesn't know what it's doing if Deion doesn't go in on the first ballot), Marshall Faulk (the best of the three running backs, one of whom gets in), Cris Carter (again, why isn't he in yet?), Shannon Sharpe (what do they have against tight ends?), and Charles Haley (I personally think he was better than Dent, and he won a record five Super Bowls), as well as Richter, who I've decided I'll be fine with if he gets in. Who will actually make it? I have no idea. Nobody does.
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