NFL Class of 2009 HOF Thread

C'mon, everyone knows that cocaine does not travel through your bloodstream as quickly in sub-zero weather.

 

Bah. And I liked the Raiders back then, too. Sorry, Marcus, for aging you enough to make that SB XV team.

Yeah, Steak, beat me to it while I was going back through the last few classes looking for rings. Wilson and Bud Adams are the last men standing from the original "Foolish Club." And Wilson is the ONLY one of that group who kept his team in the same city all these years, something that some of my fellow Bills fans would be wise to remember.

 

I can't quibble with anyone picked, aside from maybe Wilson. Not trying to be critical, but other than being around for a long time, Bills fans would have to tell me what makes him a HOF'er as an owner.

Besides the drug use, I've always understood the case against Hayes to be that he was one-dimensional. His one dimension was a helluva dimension, his speed and requisite presence as a deep threat, but that's what I've always understood the reticence towards Hayes was.

As for Carter, he'll get in, but I'm not ready to burn down a building that he didn't. My guess is the HOF voters didn't want to put two receivers in, which is dumb, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I just can't believe the Baseball HOF process gets more criticism than the football process. It's democracy vs. an oligarchy. Football's process is so much more inherently flawed.

I wonder what the respective Halls Of Fame would look like if the voting processes were reversed? Or, I wonder how baseball's HOF would be if they used the same amount of BBWAA voters, but placed a NFL-like minimum on the amount of players who could get in regardless of whether they hit the 75 percent threshold or not?

 

Quick reference work indicates that the fewest number of Super Bowl or pre-Super Bowl NFL championships won by any HoF Class was 2, and in more than one case, it was one guy with two rings, and rest not.
The most was the class of 1990, with Bob Griese, Franco Harris, Buck Buchanan, Jack Lambert, Ted Hendricks and Tom Landry combining for 17 titles between them.

 

Bubs: Wilson was instrumental in keeping the AFL alive long enough to make it to the merger by bailing out both the Pats and Raiders, who were in serious danger of folding. (He actually owned 25 percent of the Raiders at one point, while maintaining sole ownership of the Bills.) He also took a major role in negotiating the TV contract that enabled the AFL teams to offer salaries large enough to get guys like Namath to jump.

Add: Earlier this week, Mark Gaughan, Buffalo's representative on the selectors committee, laid out the case for Wilson in greater detail in Making Hall of Fame case for three Bills.
Congrats, Mark. You did your job well, as always.

 

I've said this before, but the Pro Football HOF gets backlogged a lot of times simply due to volume. You have more than twice as many players on each team than in baseball, and therefore twice as many qualified candidates who retire each year (and thus become Hall-of-Fame candidates five years later) .

 

That fact, to me, is a reason why the limits on a football class should be abolished. If you have guys from four decades on a ballot, 22 positions each, then why can't 10 or 12 guys go in? On this ballot alone, you're telling me Carter and Sharpe and one or two other guys can't all go in together?

The only way to get rid of the logjam is to put deserving players in when they are eligible, regardless of how many there are.

 

The reason the classes are limited? The length of the induction ceremony. Put 10 guys in at 15 minutes per speech (if they don't go over), plus presenters' speeches, highlight packages, and commercials, and you're talking about an all-day slog. 2002 was rough enough with five, albeit on a 96-degree afternoon.

 

Wait. I read Bruce Smith DID get in. And deservedly so, in my book.

Glad to see Ralph Wilson get in. Hope Jerry Jones never does.

Can't stand Cris Carter or Shannon Sharpe... as players or broadcasters.

I'm wondering if there is some resentment toward Tagliabue on the part of the writers. He obviously accomplished a lot during his tenure. Did he piss a lot of media types off?

 

If Baseball used the Football process, everyone with 300 home runs or 2000 hits would be in. Any pitcher who won 20 games twice or 150 career wins would be in.

 

Excellent point. They take too many people.

 

He caught 72 passes for 964 yards in his fifth season. I'm not sure that qualifies as mediocre. Also, it really does make a difference that Warner's crappy years came in the middle of his career, not the beginning. It is one thing to take a while to develop (or to get off the drugs). It is another to fall on your ass for five seasons after being the league MVP.