2010 NFL Hall of Fame Finalists Announced

The Game Room
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Link: http://www.profootballhof.com/story/2009/11/28/class-of-2010-semifinalists-announced-/

Cliff Branch, WR – 1972-1985 Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders
Tim Brown, WR/KR – 1988-2003 Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders, 2004 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Cris Carter, WR – 1987-89 Philadelphia Eagles, 1990-2001 Minnesota Vikings, 2002 Miami Dolphins
Don Coryell, Coach – 1973-77 St. Louis Cardinals, 1978-1986 San Diego Chargers
Roger Craig, RB – 1983-1990 San Francisco 49ers, 1991 Los Angeles Raiders, 1992-93 Minnesota Vikings
Terrell Davis, RB – 1995-2001 Denver Broncos
Dermontti Dawson, C – 1988-2000 Pittsburgh Steelers
Richard Dent, DE – 1983-1993, 1995 Chicago Bears, 1994 San Francisco 49ers, 1996 Indianapolis Colts, 1997 Philadelphia Eagles
Chris Doleman, DE/LB – 1985-1993, 1999 Minnesota Vikings, 1994-95 Atlanta Falcons, 1996-98 San Francisco 49ers
Kevin Greene, LB/DE – 1985-1992 Los Angeles Rams, 1993-95 Pittsburgh Steelers, 1996, 1998-99 Carolina Panthers, 1997 San Francisco 49ers
Russ Grimm, G – 1981-1991 Washington Redskins
Ray Guy, P – 1973-1986 Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders
Charles Haley, DE/LB – 1986-1991, 1999 San Francisco 49ers, 1992-96 Dallas Cowboys
Lester Hayes, CB – 1977-1986 Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders
Rickey Jackson, LB – 1981-1993 New Orleans Saints, 1994-95 San Francisco 49ers
Cortez Kennedy, DT – 1990-2000 Seattle Seahawks
Art Modell, Owner – 1961-1995 Cleveland Browns, 1996-2003 Baltimore Ravens
John Randle, DT – 1990-2000 Minnesota Vikings, 2001-03 Seattle Seahawks
Andre Reed, WR – 1985-1999 Buffalo Bills, 2000 Washington Redskins
Jerry Rice, WR – 1985-2000 San Francisco 49ers, 2001-04 Oakland Raiders, 2004 Seattle Seahawks
Shannon Sharpe, TE – 1990-99, 2002-03 Denver Broncos, 2000-01 Baltimore Ravens
Emmitt Smith, RB – 1990-2002 Dallas Cowboys, 2003-04 Arizona Cardinals
Paul Tagliabue, Commissioner – 1989-2006 National Football League
Steve Tasker, Special Teams/WR – 1985-86 Houston Oilers, 1986-1997 Buffalo Bills
Aeneas Williams, CB/S – 1991-2000 Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals, 2001-04 St. Louis Rams

One blogger’s take on who’s in and who’s not:

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Rice and Emmet are obvious shoo-ins. Hopefully Modell never gets in. When will Ken Anderson get a fair shake?

Who else do you think is a no-brainer from this list? Tagliabue? Cliff Branch? Dent? Cris Carter?

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Personally, I think the NFL HOF voting is mysterious and scary, like ebola. You never know who’s going in, although usually the biggest surprise is who’s not. :slight_smile:

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Shannon Sharpe ought to go in on the first ballot. I think Charles Haley should make it too, but I doubt he will this year.

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Note that the two Seniors Committee nominees are Dick LeBeau and Floyd Little. Four or Five modern era players (from the list in the OP) get in, along with 0-2 of the Seniors Committee guys.
The players I think should eventually get in, in roughly the order I would vote for them (Ken Anderson would be on here, somewhere in the middle, if he was one of the finalists):

  1. Jerry Rice
  2. Emmit Smith
  3. Aeneas Williams
  4. Russ Grimm
  5. Charles Haley
  6. Dick LeBeau
  7. Chris Doleman
  8. Richard Dent
  9. Shannon Sharpe
  10. Tim Brown
  11. Chris Carter
  12. John Randle
    I’m generally in favor of a more inclusive Canton, especially as concerns non QB/RB/WR types. Tim Brown and Chris Carter are probably too good to keep out, but IMO they have to get in line.

As I understand it, LeBeau isn’t supposed to get extra credit for his tenure as a coach, but I’m giving it to him anyway, and most people who know about this stuff say he probably deserves to be in just based on his playing career, besides.

I didn’t put down Dermontti Dawson because I know almost nothing about him, though the 7 Pro Bowls and (especially) six First Team All-Pros are awfully impressive.

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Must be a misprint there. I did not see any Detroit Lions listed. Revise the list and come back.

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I go with Rice, Smith, Rickey Jackson, Shannon Sharpe, and Paul Tagliabue.

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IIRC, there is no punter in the Pro Football HoF. If Ray Guy never gets in, then I guess there is no punter worthy of being in the PFHoF.

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Wasn’t there a leatherhead who punted and was the QB too?

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I guess I should have said “Designated Punter.”

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Surrender your Lion Pride and go read 10 books about Dick Lebeau.

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I hate these Halls. They’ve become such a snotty, holier-than-thou, purist wankfest that I can’t bear to care anymore. Okay, I understand wanting the Hall to memorialize only the very greatest, fine, but they’ve gone overboard. Where’s the love for Cris Carter? Isn’t he in the top 5-10 all-time in the major receiving categories? He didn’t get in on his first year because the voters didn’t want to honor him as a “first ballot” guy, really? Ray Guy is probably the best player in the history of the game at his position, he can’t get in? The Hall is basically saying that punters aren’t worth anything in football. I’d like to test that notion out and see what games would be like if every punter was someone off the street like me. I could probably kick a ball 30 yards, max, on a line. That counts the bounces too.

Guys like Terrell Davis never get in, even though he was the very best player in football for two full seasons. His 3 good seasons rank among anyone’s best 3 at that position, ever. I understand the durability argument, but it’s nonsense (especially in a league where the average career is probably like 5 years). Is the Hall a museum that tells the story of the NFL through the dominant players at each position, or is it an insider’s pat-on-the-back? Kinda rhetorical, I guess.

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Emmit Smith and Jerry Rice are the obvious first ballots. Chris Carter should be the third choice. It’s really hard to narrow the rest down to two, but I think Ray Guy deserves to be one of them. I would be comfortable with a number of others, including Shannon Sarpe and Aeneis Williams.

I can’t believe Art Modell is on the list. Is there an “Owners Who Should Be Kicked In The Balls” category that I’m unfamiliar with?

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I think this happened because there were a lot of others who deserved to get in and had been on the ballot for several years because they only elect a few people each year. Carter should get in, and they need to increase the class sizes or this is going to get worse.

But we’re not talking about average players. If Davis had had his three amazing years and a bunch of decent years, maybe he would be in. But he three very good years, then played 17 games over the next three years while dealing with various injuries, and then he retired. That really sucks, but it’s an awfully short career. I’d say no to him.

I’d vote for Rice, Smith, Williams, Sharpe, and Lebeau. Some of the others I don’t know enough about.

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It’s not just the durability argument (though that’s not *quite *as much nonsense as you think it is). It’s also the fact that when Davis went down, the Broncos plugged in Olandis Gary and were still an excellent rushing team . . . then they started Mike Anderson, who rushed for 1487/15/5.0 in his rookie year. Then, after a year of Running Back by committee, they drafted Clinton Portis who got off to one of the best starts of any RB in league history: 3,100 yards, 29 TDs, 5.5 YPC over two years (then he went to Washington and his YPC dipped to 4.1 over the next two years). Then Portis left and Reuben Droughns, Mike Anderson (again), and Tatum Bell had very good years.

The point, of course, is that there’s good reason to believe that, as good a player as he was, Terrel Davis had those three great seasons in large part because he was the first in a long line of running backs to benefit from being the feature back on a superb running team in Denver. If Denver’s running game had reverted to something close to average after Davis’ injury, then I think I’d actually support his candidacy. Instead, they plugged in a cavalcade of nobodies (Portis excepted) and consistently had one of the best rushing attacks in football.

And besides, there are too many running backs already in the hall to be letting in borderline cases.

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He’s on every year, and I honestly don’t understand it. What’s his legacy? Firing Paul Brown because he (a coach with a win record of something like 75%, who delivered 7 championships in his 16 years with the team) wouldn’t let Modell make the football decisions? Daring Jim Brown to retire, and then having him take Modell up on it?

How about getting a ridiculous sweetheart deal where not only did the city of Cleveland lease him the stadium for $1 a year AND pick up the upkeep costs, but also forced the Indians to pay him to play in the same stadium? And a fanbase that always supported the team no matter what - where there was a 30+ year waiting list on season tickets, where the merchandise sales were almost always top 10 in the league, often top 5 - and he still managed to be so incompetant at his business ventures that he was constantly skirting on the edge of bankruptcy anyway?

Even ignoring the move, he was an incompetant asshole owner. He’s done nothing special in the NFL. I don’t know why he keeps popping up as a hall of fame candidate, I can only assume the NFL likes shitting on the city of Cleveland. I hope that in the event that he actually gets accepted into the hall, a large mass of people drives down to Canton and demolishes the place.

So yeah - no championships except the one from the team that Paul Brown built, firing the best coach and best player in the history of the NFL due to sheer arrogance, and managing to be broke despite receiving hundreds of millions from the city? That’s hall of fame caliber right there. Fuck whoever puts these nominations together.

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Pfft. All he does is catch touchdowns :slight_smile:

As for Terrell Davis, I’m torn: Someone once said that their criteria for inclusion to the HoF was “could you write a history of the game without mentioning [Player]'s name?” (or something like that). By this logic, TD should get in due to John Elway finally having a running game to back him up, and thus finally winning a Super Bowl. However, his short span of greatitude does count against him being one of the “all time greats”, so…

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Yeah, and it’s a good argument. I guess the difference between what those other Denver guys did and what Davis did, while still a significant gap, indicates that Davis might have been closer to average over a replacement guy than some of the other top backs in history.

Look, I’m not saying he’s a no-doubt guy, or that he even belongs in the Hall of Fame as it stands, but I’m one of those “The Hall is a museum, not a pat on the back” kind of guys I guess. I think being the best player at a skill position for a three year stretch is worthy of note. And like SleepyDuck said, can you tell the history of the NFL without bringing up Davis? I don’t think you can. Not very many people have rushed for 2000 yards in a season, and of those, only Davis ever had more than 20 TDs. Actually, aside from LDT’s 2006, Davis’s 1998 might be the best statistical season by a running back, ever. Counts for something, for me.

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That’s fair. Like I said, if I was convinced that he personally had a bigger impact on his team’s success I’d probably be in favor (I mean, if Gale Sayers is in, there has to be room in the Hall for careers such as Davis’). Likewise, if they were admitting 7 or 8 guys every year instead of 5 or 6 (and I wish they would), then I’d probably have room for him. It just seems like there’s such a backlog of deserving players, especially at positions other than QB, RB, and (to a lesser extent) WR.

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Shannon Sharpe’s first ballot was last year and he got snubbed. It’s an outrage.

My “no brainers”:

Obviously Rice and Smith are shoe-ins. However, Carter, Brown, Sharpe and Randle should be, too, and they won’t.

I’m sure one or two of the guys I left out are equally deserving, but I don’t know enough about their eras. If somebody has to be left out from my list, I’d prefer that it be Carter and Brown. Sharpe, Greene and Randle redefined (or helped to redefine) their positions, and Smith and Rice are statistically the best ever.

Carter and Brown are both players who were very good for a very long time, but neither one was a game changer.