The NFL Hall of Fame finalists for 2011 have been narrowed down to:
Marshall Faulk - RB
Jerome Bettis - RB
Curtis Martin - RB
Tim Brown - WR
Cris Carter - WR
Andre Reed - WR
Shannon Sharpe - TE
Willie Roaf - OT
Dermontti Dawson - C
Richard Dent - DL
Chris Doleman - DL
Charles Haley - DL
Cortez Kennedy - DL
Deion Sanders - DB
Ed Sabol - Founder of NFL Films
So, Ray Guy misses the final cut yet again, as well as Roger Craig, Terell Davis and Kevin Greene.
I think Brown, Carter, Bettis, Sharpe and Sanders will get in…maybe not all this year. Thoughts?
My first thought is, “Wow, does this show how silly it is to put non-playing contributors in the same vote as players.” You could make an argument that few people have influenced the history of the NFL as much as Ed Sabol. We all grew up watching NFL Films’ mythologic view of the game and it just wouldn’t be the same without his vision.
My picks are:
Sabol (explanation above)
Sanders (despite the flash and the mouth, really the best of his time)
Sharpe (the prototypical receiving tight end, changed the way the position is played in the modern NFL)
Reed (the other half of the K-Gun attack which took four straight AFC titles)
Bettis (really a toss-up between him and Carter–two guys with long, solid careers)
Almost everybody on this list is very deserving, and most will get in eventually. I’d say Deion Sanders and Marshall Faulk get in, for sure.
After that, it all comes down to the debates and horse-trading and “You owe me one” reminders that always go on within the voting committee. If, for instance, Peter King got someone to vote for HIS favorite candidate last year, that someone may call in his chits and say “You OWE me a vote for Tim Brown this year.” Or there may be a bunch of voters thinking “Cris Carter has gotten bypassed a few times already, and he SHOULD have been a first ballot inductee. It’s his TURN, damn it.” Or a few other guys may be thinking, "Richard Dent has been waiting the longest, and he’s WAAAAY overdue.
It’s not all about who each voter thinks is deserving, as it is in Baseball Hall of Fame voting. In football, there are always one or two no-brainers amoing the first time nominees, and then… it’s about which voters can piece together the most support for their personal favorites.
I think that there are a number of voters who feel that Guy wasn’t necessarily a great punter, and that he got press for certain things (like hitting the gondola at the Superdome) which weren’t materially relevant to his performance as a punter. And, of course, there’s skepticism with some voters about pure special-teams players making it into the Hall, at all. I think, if any punter is going to make it in, it might be Shane Lechler (but even that might be a stretch).
I’d be very surprised if Davis ever gets in; he had two very good years, two outstanding years, and that’s really it. I also think that there may be a sentiment that Denver, in that era, with its offensive line and system, could make anyone into a stud running back (because, honestly, they did).
I’m a little surprised that Craig gets as much support as he does (and I really liked the guy when he played). He played on several Super Bowl teams, and was a beast in '85 and '88, but the sweet spot of his career was only 5 or 6 years, he only ran for 1000 yards three times (though, yes, I know, he was as dangerous as a receiver as he was as a rusher), and his per-carry average was a very average 4.1 yards.
Ray Guy isn’t in the Hall of Fame because he’s a punter. That’s kind of a shame, because like it or not (and I say the same thing about the DH and the closer in baseball) punter is a legit position in the NFL. Guy was All-Pro six straight years and played in seven Pro-Bowls. Why recognize punters and kickers as All-Pro’s for single season excellence, but not as Hall of Famers for career excellence?
While it is true that Guy’s career gross average (42.4) is only 73rd all time, what you might also notice is that there are hardly any contemporaries within a yard of him. Everybody above him on the list either played most of their careers before 1974 (when they moved the goalposts back, which meant more punts attempted in the opposing half of the field, hence a hard limit on the maximum punt distance) or within the last 20 years (when more indoor stadiums with their balmy year-round climates started to predominate). On the other hand, his net average was only 33.6: Rich Camarillo, a near-contemporary, had a net of 36.0 (vs. 42.7 gross).
Yeah, I recognize that his gross average, while pedestrian by today’s standards, was big for its time. I’m old enough to have seen most of Guy’s career (hell, he was my punter on my team when my high-school friends and I formed an all-star league, using the APBA Football game). I remember that he really boomed the ball, but I know that’s not the entire story.
I was trying (and failing) to find a listing of his net average (that’s what I was curious about; I think it’s an important stat for understanding a punter’s total performance).
I do know that Paul Zimmerman (longtime SI football writer and HoF voter before his stroke a couple of years ago) felt that Guy was overrated.
That’s not entirely true. Ray Guy is out mainly because the voting system for the Football Hall of Fame is nothing like that of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
In the baseball Hall of Fame, there are hundreds of sportswriters who get to vote, and their votes are generally made public. In addition, these writers can elect as few or as many candidates as they want. If there are 15 worthy candidates, there’s nothing preventing the writers from voting in 15 players. And if there’s nobody that the writers think is worthy, they can elect ZERO candidates, if they see fit.
It’s very different with the Football Hall of Fame. Football players are chosen by a committee of 44 football “ experts” (sportswriters, league officials, former players, etc.). And this committee has limits on how few AND how many people they can select in a given year. They HAVE to elect 4 players each year, but they CAN’T choose more than 7.
Since every voter has his own criteria and his own preferences, things aren’t as neat as in the baseball voting. If Tom Verducci votes for Jack Morris for the Baseball Hall of Fame, that doesn’t hurt Barry Larkin’s chances. But if Peter King votes for Cortez Kennedy, that vote DOES hurt Dermontti Dawson’s chances.
As I said earlier, as a practical matter, there are one or two new contenders each year who are no-brainers. When, say, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady retire, they’ll be voted in as soon as they’re eligible. And then? The 44 members start arguing for their favorites, they start making deals (“Okay, I’ll vote for Randy Moss this year, even though think he’s a jerk… but then you have to vote for Randy Gradishar NEXT year.”).
There’s another angle to this- in baseball, there is no single reporter who can keep out ANY player. But there are a few guys on the football panel who ARE powerful enough to keep certain players out, if those players don’t have an overwhelming consensus on their side. Peter King and Paul Zimmerman COULDN’T keep out Jerry Rice, even if they hated him… but historically, they HAVE kept out borderline players they weren’t sold on. Peter King ADMITS that he personally kept Art Monk out of the Hall for quite some time, before Joe Gibbs convinced him that Monk was deserving.
And for a long time , Paul Zimmerman has been the main obstacle to Ray Guy getting elected. Rightly or wrongly (I agree with him, but many virulently disagree), Zimmerman has always argued that Ray Guy was overrated, that MANY punters have better net averages and nailed coffin corner kicks better.
Zimmerman has always argued that if ANY punter belongs in the Hall, it’s Tommy Davis, a great punter for the 49ers, in the Fifties and early Sixties.
Ray Guy isn’t out because he’s a punter- he’s out because one very powerful committee member has kept him out.
Zimmerman is in ill health and won’t be a force much longer. When he’s gone, I suspect Ray Guy will get in.
Zimmerman had a stroke in late 2008 (and has suffered several other strokes since then), which has seriously hampered his ability to communicate. While he’s still on the selection committee, I don’t think that he’s actually been involved in the selection process since suffering the stroke.
Fuck, there are too many deserving candidates for not enough spots. They need to go back to a max of 6 inductees per year. My (rough) order of preference:
Deion Sanders
Wille Roaf
Marshall Faulk
Curtis Martin
Tim Brown
Dermontti Dawson
Chris Doleman
Richard Dent
Chris Carter
Shannon Sharpe
*) Ed Sabol, who really should be inducted through a separate process.
That leaves only Haley, Kennedy, and Bettis, and it’s not like it would take much to convince my of their merits. For instance, if Bettis gets in that’s fine by me, I just leave him off because he had a number of inefficient, high-workload seasons (even for a power back), and because RBs are already over-represented in the Hall. A couple notes:
– I’ve written here before about how insanely awesome the Chiefs’ offensive line was from the early '00s teams. Roaf and Will Shields both need to be inducted.
– Curtis Martin was the King of Ball Security. In 4,002 touches, he fumbled only 29 times (and only 12 times with the Jets, where he played 8 of his 11 years). That’s 1 fumble for every 138 touches. For comparison, Jerome Bettis coughed it up once every 89 touches, and Marshall Faulk about once every 100 touches, and both of those players had above average fumble rates for RBs. If you look at the list of all-time leading rushers, the only one who even comes close to Curtis Martin is LaDanian Tomlinson.
Also, when comparing Martin and Bettis, keep in mind that, while their rushing numbers are pretty similar (fumbles aside), Martin had about 150% more receptions.
The voting system just does not make sense to me. I say this in baseball, too, but to reflect expansion and other things, they need to let the voters make more choices. I’d vote for Reed, Sharpe, Faulk, and Sanders (ugh) for sure and I could be convinced on a couple of others.
Zimmerman can’t write or speak. There’s no way he has participated in any voting the last few years.
