The NFL Hall of Fame Selection Process
Many football fans probably have wondered how the process works to determine who gets into the Hall of Fame. If they are like me the assumption is the process is pretty accurate. But in reality, to some degree, it is a farce, albeit the process has to be a farce considering the nature of football.
The first question to objectively ask is who should decide? The number of people who vote is 46 and they are all media representatives from varied cities plus 13 at large plus one from the Football Writers Association of America. Membership can be terminated only by resignation or retirement.
At the end of this musing is a list of the current members.
There are no coaches, no former players, few if any members who have ever played football or coached, especially in the NFL. I suppose some will say if a person has never been there participating in some way on a team, how can they be a judge for selecting the Hall of Fame? I suspect most football fans have never heard of very many of the selectors. I, for example, recognize two names out of the 46 and neither of them would I consider remotely neutral to be selectors. It is good to remember that media football writers must write articles that attract readers. Any dull rendition of the stats pertaining to any game isn't going to sell. A heavy amount of content then consists of character approval or disapproval, personalities, behavior off the field, controversial quotations from players about other players or teams, etc. Any real good player who can't attract attention in these areas doesn't stand out.
But let us accept that there probably are no neutral people directly involved in professional football to participate in the selection process. Instead let us pretend we are truly neutral and are asked to select the best players to put into the Hall of Fame. Let us pretend here we are asked to judge which wide receivers deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. Perhaps we could just line up the stats associated with being a wide receiver like number of touchdowns, total yards, yards after the catch, number of catches, etc. We could rank them in each category for their career, and then mesh their standing in all the categories and poof, there is the basis for admitting them to the Hall of Fame. Of course that is not really much proof of anything in the final ranking. We can almost bet that wide receivers who have a lot of good stats for their career had a lot of good quarterbacks throwing to them. We can also bet that wide receivers with good stats were on teams that emphasized passing, instead of being a good running team. Then there is the injury factor. There certainly are injuries in football so a particular candidate may have been a good amount of time injured. Stats can't be generated by injury. Of course how effective even a good quarterback can be depends on his offensive line. And did the wide receiver play outdoors in a northern city? That could impact. And what about wide receivers who play on a team which has a good coach, that would impact also. What kind of division did the wide receiver's team play in, a weak or strong division? Were there other really good wide receivers on the team to force passing the ball around? What about the quality of the pass defenders the wide receiver faces? What about how often a given wide receiver is double-teamed? What about the press coverage the team the wide receiver is on---is it a big market or a small market team? What about the personality of a particular wide-receiver. I mean, if we think someone is an A-hole in our perspective, why would we want to elect an A-hole to the Hall of Fame. What a golden chance to screw someone we don't like personally.
Let's face it, all the candidates are really good wide receivers. But like accurately assessing which team will beat another team, football does not lend itself to such a task. Too many things are uncontrollable in any game for accurate prediction. And so it is with the Hall of Fame process---too many variables which the wide receiver cannot control which determine his stats. Other positions would generate similar problems.
There is one stat with wide receivers which is often overlooked---the ability to pressure coaches and quarterbacks to direct the ball in their direction. Take a Terrell Owns, for example. In high school and college he was so quiet, shy, and withdrawn that many players on his team then can hardly remember anything about him. He wasn't even a first stringer all of high school and most of college. He was drafted 87th in the third round of the draft by San Francisco. There he watched Jerry Rice, and saw that both coaches and quarterback got royal hell if Rice didn't get the ball thrown his way X number of times. Of course Rice was a great wide receiver, but with a different personality his stats might look different. Part of T.O.'s success is that he saw this and excelled in creating enough pressure on coaches and quarterbacks that he got the ball plenty of times. How many wide receivers go into the huddle and influence the quarterback to change the play to get them the ball. T.O. did that a lot in San Francisco. The game has changed since those distant days and the object today is to pass the ball around more to several receivers, to keep the other team off guard. So a wide receiver today, doesn't have the opportunity to amass the kind of stats Rice, Owens, and Moss did in their heydays.
At any rate some will get into the Hall of Fame and some will not. And it will be a big deal primarily to the individuals who get in or don't. How many former players can most football fans really name anyway? Hell, most of us are hard pressed to recite who won the Super Bowls the last ten years.
Below are the current members of the selection committee. Impressed aren't you?
How could this be improved? That is difficult, but my guess is that in this day and age a pretty good computer program could be written up which would include some of the variables I mentioned above. Computers have the capability of keeping track of so many variables. Humans don't. So perhaps a computer program for each position needs to be formulated and the information just fed into the computer and bam, just like that out comes the winners. If I were a good NFL football player about half way through my career I would limit any interviews to 46 people. Why waste your breath on any others?
At any rate I am stumped as to any genuinely accurate way there could be to elect people to the Hall of Fame. For a start there need to be categories like wide receiver, running back, quarterback, etc. How does one decide whether to pick an excellent running back or an excellent wide receiver? If we have ever listened to any of the 'experts' debate players on TV/radio/internet then we really do realize the impossibility of correctly electing players to the Hall of Fame. Debating about players is similar to debating about religion, politics, music, etc. The majority opinion wins and nothing much else is proven. Permanent membership on the committee seems really silly. Imagine selecting certain media 'experts' to be the permanent deciders about who are the best players. One thing is for sure----personal bias should never be firmly entrenched in the process.
Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee
Arizona
Kent Somers, Arizona Republic
Atlanta
Len Pasquarelli, CBS-Atlanta
Baltimore
Scott Garceau, WMAR-TV
Buffalo
Mark Gaughan, Buffalo News
Carolina
Darin Gantt, ProFootballTalk
Chicago
Dan Pompei, SportsOnEarth.com*
Cincinnati
Joe Reedy, Cincinnati Enquirer
Cleveland
Tony Grossi, ESPNCleveland.com/WKNR Radio
Dallas
Rick Gosselin, Dallas Morning News*
Denver
Jeff Legwold, ESPN.com
Detroit
Anwar Richardson, Yahoo! Sports
Green Bay
Cliff Christl, Green Bay Press-Gazette
Houston
John McClain, Houston Chronicle*
Indianapolis
Mike Chappell, Indianapolis Star
Jacksonville
Sam Kouvaris, WJXT-TV
Kansas City
Randy Covitz, Kansas City Star
Miami
Edwin Pope, Miami Herald
Minnesota
Mark Craig, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
New England
Ron Borges, Boston Herald*
New Orleans
Pete Finney, Times-Picayune
New York (Giants)
Bob Glauber, Newsday
New York (Jets)
Gary Myers, New York Daily News
Oakland
Frank Cooney, The Sports Xchange
Philadelphia
Paul Domowitch, Philadelphia Daily News
Pittsburgh
Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
St. Louis
Bernie Miklasz, St. Louis Post-Dispatch*
San Diego
Nick Canepa, San Diego Union Tribune
San Francisco
Nancy Gay, Comcast Sportsnet
Seattle
Mike Sando, ESPN.com
Tampa Bay
Ira Kaufman, Tampa Tribune
Tennessee
David Climer, The Tennessean
Washington
David Elfin, 106.7 The Fan
PFWA
Darryl Ledbetter, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At Large
Howard Balzer, The Sports Xchange
At Large
Jarrett Bell, USA Today
At Large
John Clayton, ESPN/ESPN Magazine
At Large
Jason Cole, Yahoo! Sports
At Large
John Czarnecki, FOXSports.com*
At Large
Dave Goldberg, AOL Sports/Fanhouse*
At Large
Clark Judge, CBSSports.com
At Large
Peter King, Sports Illustrated
At Large
Ira Miller, The Sports Xchange*
At Large
Sal Paolantonio, ESPN
At Large
Vito Stellino, Florida Times Union
At Large
Jim Trotter, Sports Illustrated
At Large
Charean Williams, Ft. Worth Star Telegram
