2016 Pro Football Hall of Fame Ballot

The fact that the nominee list gets to 14 DBs and he's not in it makes Cherry a perfect Seniors Committee pick. The lack of safeties in the Hall is appalling but if Lynch gets in next year and Atwater stays on the verge with Woodson making a move up the ballot before Reed and Polamalu get inducted, hopefully it puts a spotlight on the guys who have been overlooked at the position.

 

There are like seven or eight pure safeties in Canton.
This is a travesty.
And then every fkn year we talk about inducting another compiler receiver.

How do you get noticed as a DB in the room?
Corners get the picks and safeties play a lot of team defense. (Cherry did both.)
So they don't come up in discussion.

Or maybe I just have a boner for safeties. I want my son to play the position.

 

The true safeties in the Hall. And yes you read that correctly. The most recent true HOF safety according to the voters last played in 1980.

Jack Christiansen (S) 1951-1958
Ken Houston (S) 1967-1980
Paul Krause (S) 1964-1979
Yale Lary (S) 1952-1953, 1956-1964
Emlen Tunnell (S) 1948-1961
Larry Wilson (S) 1960-1972
Willie Wood (S) 1960-1971

 

There were four safeties from the 1980s that could/should get Hall consideration: Cherry, Donnie Shell, Nolan Cromwell and Ken Easley. Depending on the day, my ranking of 1 to 4 would change dramatically. Shell may have been my favorite player when I was little, and when I started to understand the nuances of the game, Cherry was just entering his prime. They likely get weighted more in my head. I worked with a guy who covered the Seahawks in the 1980s, and he never really said much about Easley. Knew some Rams beat writers and they raved about Cromwell.

 

I would be willing to throw Cliff Harris and Joey Browner into the pool.
Re. Donnie Shell, Peter King has said there are too many '70s Steelers in Canton.
Which is ridiculous, of course.

 

Which ones does Peter think shouldn't be there?

 

Dr Z always talked up Cliff Harris for the HOF.

 

If we go with 70s safeties, I would add Jake Scott and Dick Anderson. Probably Charley Waters as well.

Totally forgot about Browner. Good call.

 

I will have to find the source for the King contention.
If I am just guessing, I think he had a problem with Stallworth.
Stallworth was the throw-in Hall of Famer from that dynasty. He had very ordinary statistics.

 

It's interesting, because the KC media will occasionally bang the drum for Otis Taylor or Dan Quisenberry to make their respective halls of fame, but I don't remember much of a local push for Cherry, who was so popular there when he played. And you are right, he probably deserves it.

 

If you want to go by statistics, Stallworth's numbers were far superior to Swann's. Now much of that was because he played five more seasons, but longevity matters, especially in football. Stallworth finished his career with 537 receptions.Swann had 336. Both made big plays. Stallworth averaged 16.2 yards per catch. Swann averaged 16.3. Swann never had a 1,000 yards receiving in a season. Stallworth did it three times.

Stallworth actually had his best season statistically in 1984, when Bradshaw, Swann and Harris were gone. He caught 80 balls fro 1,395 yards and 11 touchdowns for a team that used three starting quarterbacks, all of them shitty.

All of this helps illustrate how much the game has changed and just how hard it is to compare receiving statistics from the '70s and '80s to now. I know 537 receptions doesn't sound like many by today's standards, but it was enough to put Stallworth among the top 20 all time when he retired.

Bringing it back to King's point, I do think Stallworth was more deserving than Shell, but the idea that a player should be kept out because too many of his teammates made it is utter bullshit.

 

I'm aware of how much the game has changed, Plop, as are 99.9% of the people who post here, but we all thank you for trying to educate members on the subject.
Look at the statistics again and examine how many seasons he was not a major contributor.
Not as big a contributor as Donnie Shell, anyway.