WoodysGirl
11-28-2011, 01:17 PM
7. 1. I think these are my thoughts on the Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 2012 semifinalist list, which the Hall issued last week and which will be cut down from 26 to 15 in early January and become the finalists for the next class:
a. No Art Modell, Ray Guy, Joe Klecko. Modell's hurt by his move to Baltimore and I believe in the thought that though he was important to the TV explosion it likely would have happened anyway. Guy's hurt by the fact that his gross average is 74th all-time -- and possibly by the fact that a Raider heir, Shane Lechler (who had the longest punt of his illustrious career Sunday, an 80-yarder), is the all-time leader with an average of 5.1 yards-per-punt higher. Klecko? The man who made the Pro Bowl at three positions can't get traction among the voters, and I'm surprised.
b. Steve Tasker made it, which is good. I've said this before about him: His long-time special teams coach in Buffalo, Bruce DeHaven, once gave me a tape of 10 plays Tasker made on special teams that he figures won games for the Bills in their glory years. I back the man I consider the best special teams player ever, and I think he did enough to get in. But I'd be surprised if he made the final 15.
c. There are 26 semifinalists, not 25, because there was a tie for 25th. By the bylaws, a tie for the last position means all those tied make the next cut.
d. Sunday was the 20th anniversary of the Packers hiring Ron Wolf as GM. Good to see him make the list of 25 (or 26) for the first time. And fitting because the Packers that he set the architectural stage for are unbeaten.
e. Now a word about Jerry Kramer. The former Packer guard seems to be the player in the last year or so who has the most ardent group of supporters behind him via email, on the Internet and in the Twitterverse. A few things about the Kramer candidacy. He retired from the Packers after a stellar 11-year career in 1968. He was elected All-Pro five times, and to the Pro Bowl three times (an odd juxtaposition, seeing that there were three Pro Bowl guards and just two on the All-Pro team), and to the NFL's 50th anniversary team in 1970.
He was a modern-era candidate from 1974 through 1988. He was a finalist nine times and not elected. After his 15 years on the modern-era list, he was eligible as a Seniors Committee candidate. For the last 24 years, he's been on the Seniors list, and came up again in front of the full selection committee in 1997. He didn't get the required 80 percent of the votes to make it. That Seniors Committee could recommend him again any year, and may in the coming years, to have his case heard by the committee, which has many new members since 1997.
(The Seniors Committee is a group of nine Hall voters who meet every year to determine which two long-retired players will have their cases heard by the 44-member group of Hall selectors. If Kramer had been a hot candidate, he'd have been in the room to be considered by now.
It seems to me a couple of things are at play here. He had some competition on his own team at guard, and overall. Gale Gillingham and Fuzzy Thurston (but Gillingham especially) were very good players too, and players in that era are split on who is most deserving, particularly between Kramer and Gillingham, who played with Kramer for three years and then took over for him at right guard when Kramer retired. The fact that there are 10 Packers from that era's team in the Hall can't help -- the same way it doesn't help L.C. Greenwood that there are so many Steelers in. But because Kramer was selected to the NFL's 50-year team, it seems dumb that he's not in.
OK, now you know the history. The way I view it is this: The vast majority of voters who watched Kramer and the Packers live are no longer on the committee -- including the writers who covered the great Green Bay era, with the exception of Sid Hartman from Minneapolis. The rest, veteran scribes like Art Daley from Wisconsin, Cooper Rollow from Chicago, Chuck Heaton from Cleveland, Jerry Green from Detroit, are gone from the committee. In their place are young writers and voters.
We are being asked, basically, to overrule those who watched Kramer's entire career. They had 15 chances to enshrine Kramer after watching the Packers win five titles in the '60s. They had years to nominate and push his case as a senior candidate. And the media people who saw him the most and knew the Packers the best didn't think he was worthy.
Many of the senior candidates are those who never had their cases heard before the entire body of voters, either because they played an invisible position or played for a mediocre team, or both. That's the case with this year's two candidates, guard Dick Stanfel and defensive back Jack Butler. Kramer was on TV a lot, and with the best team of his era. So it's a pretty tough thing to ask, first, the Seniors Committee to nominate him again, and second, the 44 voters to say the media who watched him year in and year out made a mistake. Not impossible. Just difficult.
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/peter_king/11/27/week.12/index.html#ixzz1f1r61Fob
a. No Art Modell, Ray Guy, Joe Klecko. Modell's hurt by his move to Baltimore and I believe in the thought that though he was important to the TV explosion it likely would have happened anyway. Guy's hurt by the fact that his gross average is 74th all-time -- and possibly by the fact that a Raider heir, Shane Lechler (who had the longest punt of his illustrious career Sunday, an 80-yarder), is the all-time leader with an average of 5.1 yards-per-punt higher. Klecko? The man who made the Pro Bowl at three positions can't get traction among the voters, and I'm surprised.
b. Steve Tasker made it, which is good. I've said this before about him: His long-time special teams coach in Buffalo, Bruce DeHaven, once gave me a tape of 10 plays Tasker made on special teams that he figures won games for the Bills in their glory years. I back the man I consider the best special teams player ever, and I think he did enough to get in. But I'd be surprised if he made the final 15.
c. There are 26 semifinalists, not 25, because there was a tie for 25th. By the bylaws, a tie for the last position means all those tied make the next cut.
d. Sunday was the 20th anniversary of the Packers hiring Ron Wolf as GM. Good to see him make the list of 25 (or 26) for the first time. And fitting because the Packers that he set the architectural stage for are unbeaten.
e. Now a word about Jerry Kramer. The former Packer guard seems to be the player in the last year or so who has the most ardent group of supporters behind him via email, on the Internet and in the Twitterverse. A few things about the Kramer candidacy. He retired from the Packers after a stellar 11-year career in 1968. He was elected All-Pro five times, and to the Pro Bowl three times (an odd juxtaposition, seeing that there were three Pro Bowl guards and just two on the All-Pro team), and to the NFL's 50th anniversary team in 1970.
He was a modern-era candidate from 1974 through 1988. He was a finalist nine times and not elected. After his 15 years on the modern-era list, he was eligible as a Seniors Committee candidate. For the last 24 years, he's been on the Seniors list, and came up again in front of the full selection committee in 1997. He didn't get the required 80 percent of the votes to make it. That Seniors Committee could recommend him again any year, and may in the coming years, to have his case heard by the committee, which has many new members since 1997.
(The Seniors Committee is a group of nine Hall voters who meet every year to determine which two long-retired players will have their cases heard by the 44-member group of Hall selectors. If Kramer had been a hot candidate, he'd have been in the room to be considered by now.
It seems to me a couple of things are at play here. He had some competition on his own team at guard, and overall. Gale Gillingham and Fuzzy Thurston (but Gillingham especially) were very good players too, and players in that era are split on who is most deserving, particularly between Kramer and Gillingham, who played with Kramer for three years and then took over for him at right guard when Kramer retired. The fact that there are 10 Packers from that era's team in the Hall can't help -- the same way it doesn't help L.C. Greenwood that there are so many Steelers in. But because Kramer was selected to the NFL's 50-year team, it seems dumb that he's not in.
OK, now you know the history. The way I view it is this: The vast majority of voters who watched Kramer and the Packers live are no longer on the committee -- including the writers who covered the great Green Bay era, with the exception of Sid Hartman from Minneapolis. The rest, veteran scribes like Art Daley from Wisconsin, Cooper Rollow from Chicago, Chuck Heaton from Cleveland, Jerry Green from Detroit, are gone from the committee. In their place are young writers and voters.
We are being asked, basically, to overrule those who watched Kramer's entire career. They had 15 chances to enshrine Kramer after watching the Packers win five titles in the '60s. They had years to nominate and push his case as a senior candidate. And the media people who saw him the most and knew the Packers the best didn't think he was worthy.
Many of the senior candidates are those who never had their cases heard before the entire body of voters, either because they played an invisible position or played for a mediocre team, or both. That's the case with this year's two candidates, guard Dick Stanfel and defensive back Jack Butler. Kramer was on TV a lot, and with the best team of his era. So it's a pretty tough thing to ask, first, the Seniors Committee to nominate him again, and second, the 44 voters to say the media who watched him year in and year out made a mistake. Not impossible. Just difficult.
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/peter_king/11/27/week.12/index.html#ixzz1f1r61Fob