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Denver Native (Carol)
02-03-2010, 10:22 PM
http://blogs.denverpost.com/sports/2010/02/03/football-hall-of-fame-voting-too-much-power-in-the-hands-of-too-few/

4 voters include many men and women I know and respect, and I’m sure I’d respect all 44 if I had met them. The list is impressive; it’s just not long enough. I am not belitting any individual’s qualifications to be a voter. I’m criticizing a system in which 44 people — any 44 people — have that much power.

Even the U.S. Senate has 100 members.

(Supply your own punchline.)

The point is, in the Hall of Fame voting, individual vendettas can amount to vetoes. That’s the reason former Broncos linebacker Randy Gradishar isn’t in the Hall of Fame — the petty vendetta of an outspoken single voter who had immense influence in the discussion and the voting. One person ridiculously saying, “Aw, the 3-4 defense inflates linebacker’s statistics, and, on top of that, they exaggerated their tackle statistics in Denver,” was enough to keep Gradishar out in the early years of his eligibility, when he should have bebrainer selection. After that, it became, “Well, these newly eligible candidates are more deserving, and if he was so hot, why isn’t he in already?” As younger voters entered the process, they trusted the voters before them — and assumed that the guy with 27 different colored pens in his pocket charting punting hang time during pregame warmup must have known what he was talking about.

There are too many voters in baseball’s Hall of Fame voting.

There aren’t enough in football. It’s awkward for representatives of each NFL city to assume the role of proponent for candidates from “their” teams, especially because they might not have worked in those markets when they players in question were in their primes. Horse trading — you vote for my guy, I’ll vote for yours — goes on, mostly subtly. The bottom line is some great players don’t even get a sniff. Case in point: Roger Wehrli couldn’t carry Louis Wright’s, um, helmet. Yet Wehrli is in the Hall of Fame and Wright never even gets mentioned.

I’m not belittling the voters. I’m disdainful of the limited voting pool and the process, including the fact that the voting takes place on a Saturday morning in the Super Bowl city, which means that it’s at the tail end of a week in which media members typically spend a lot of time scrambling to round up extra tickets to the commissioner’s party. And then the pressure is on to make the decisions quickly enough to make arrangements for the announcements and the conference calls.

This year, the major candidates include three men I did cover stories on during my tenure at The Sporting News — first-time eligibles Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith, and holdover eligible Richard Dent. Rice and Smith are shoo-ins; Dent should be, but faces an uphill battle. Also, by all means, I can’t see how the voting body could be so petty as to not rubber-stamp the selection of Floyd Little as a veterans committee-advanced candidate. When I moved to Denver in 1972 after my father became the Broncos’ offensive line coach, I saw what Floyd meant to this franchise and to Denver, and you’re darned right, that should enter into it. But he also can stand on his own two bowed legs, and deserved to be in long ago.

The TSN covers for my stories on Rice, Smith, and Dent pieces are below. I visited Rice in Mississippi in an offseason. I met with Smith and the Bills’ Thurman Thomas at their joint birthday party in Dallas, and then at training camps to write a piece about their friendship. And I wrote a dual profile and strategy piece about Dent and Packers’ offensive tackle Ken Ruettgers to stand as an example of a left tackle vs. pass rushing specialist intradivisional battle that took place twice a season for years.b (And, yes, somebody had to explain the “Headbangers Ball” headline to me. I wasn’t a big MTV fan at the time.)

Lonestar
02-03-2010, 10:57 PM
With most of the voters east of the Mississippi and those that are on the west coast have there own agenda it is unlikely that any PURE Bronco will ever get in.

By pure I means someone that played his whole career in DEN.

Sharpe should get in but only because he also played and got his third Ring in BAL after playing out there for a YEAR.. plus having a gig on TV will not hurt his chances.

Very few teams in the NFL have been in the playoffs and superbowls as many times as DEN has in the past 25 years or so.

Yet everyone has more players in the HOF than we do.

Denver Native (Carol)
02-03-2010, 11:06 PM
With most of the voters east of the Mississippi and those that are on the west coast have there own agenda it is unlikely that any PURE Bronco will ever get in.

By pure I means someone that played his whole career in DEN.

Sharpe should get in but only because he also played and got his third Ring in BAL after playing out there for a YEAR.. plus having a gig on TV will not hurt his chances.

Very few teams in the NFL have been in the playoffs and superbowls as many times as DEN has in the past 25 years or so.

Yet everyone has more players in the HOF than we do.


:confused: #7

OrangeHoof
02-04-2010, 12:54 AM
The PFHOF rules are just daft to me. You can argue about the Baseball HOF rules too but the front-door voting by the BBWAA has stood the test of time. There are very few elected the right way who shouldn't be there and, conversely, few who deserve to be there than aren't (minus the obvious who were left out for gambling or cheating),

The PFHOF though seems to look more like a clique where the Steelers and Cowboys dominate and a lot of players from other teams just get ignored. Plus, football is much more of a team sport than baseball. A guy who plays in the trenches may be a truly valuable player but he gets next to no credit for doing his job exceedingly well. The PFHOF is dominated by people who handle the football over the guys who don't. That would be like filling the baseball HOF with outfielders.

BroncoWave
02-04-2010, 12:58 AM
:confused: #7

I think he means unless it's someone so beyond obvious like Elway, a career Bronco may never get in.

Broncolingus
02-04-2010, 02:36 AM
With most of the voters east of the Mississippi and those that are on the west coast have there own agenda it is unlikely that any PURE Bronco will ever get in.

By pure I means someone that played his whole career in DEN.

Sharpe should get in but only because he also played and got his third Ring in BAL after playing out there for a YEAR.. plus having a gig on TV will not hurt his chances.

Very few teams in the NFL have been in the playoffs and superbowls as many times as DEN has in the past 25 years or so.

Yet everyone has more players in the HOF than we do.

EXCELLENT post, Jr...a discussion me and my old man had for years...

Couldn't agree more...:salute:

Nomad
02-04-2010, 09:06 AM
What's a good solution to HOF voting.....Only let HOFers vote and not the media!

Lonestar
02-04-2010, 10:56 AM
No on only current hof members. As most of them would align for the players of the teams they played for. Plus then there would be the same bias we have now with the teams that have the most memebers would perpetuate what has been going on for years.


Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

Nomad
02-04-2010, 11:59 AM
No on only current hof members. As most of them would align for the players of the teams they played for. Plus then there would be the same bias we have now with the teams that have the most memebers would perpetuate what has been going on for years.


Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

So there is no good solution, BRONCO fans will just have to except the bias. With all the political influence Little has backing him, if he doesn't get in then no other BRONCO will except Sharpe being he was a Raven once!!

Denver Native (Carol)
02-04-2010, 12:05 PM
This morning - Vic & Gary had on the senior representative (I did not catch his name), from the senior committee who will talk on behalf of Floyd, and then Jeff Legwold will give his presentation, on behalf of Floyd. This person said that he and Jeff had gone over their presentations, and Jeff's is OUTSTANDING.

Then he was ask if he thought both Floyd and Shannon would go in this year, and he stated he hoped that Shannon would not go in this year, as he can not see TWO Broncos going in the same year - and I thought he said this would be Floyd's LAST OPPORTUNITY