Pro Football Hall of Fame Voters Continue to Prove They’re Clueless

And yet another Hall of Fame vote passes without the entrance of Cris Carter into Canton.

Or, in other words, the Hall of Fame voters screw things up yet again.

Not having the second-best wide receiver to ever play the game in the Hall of Fame is a complete joke. I can’t even articulate just how pathetic this entire process is and just how stupid the majority of these voters must be.

Let’s take a look at this year’s class: Deion Sanders, Marshall Faulk, Shannon Sharpe, Les Richter, Chris Hanburger, Richard Dent, and Ed Sabol were the seven to get in.

Throw Hanburger and Richter out of the discussion because they were the Senior Committee nominees and those guys are almost always locks to get in. Also throw Faulk and Sanders out of the discussion because everyone could tell five years into their careers they were going to be first-ballot Hall of Fame players.

That leaves three spots left and a player pool of Jerome Bettis, Charles Haley, Curtis Martin, Tim Brown, Cris Carter, Chris Doleman, Cortez Kennedy, Willie Roaf, Andre Reed, Dermontti Dawson, Richard Dent, and Ed Sabol.

His name caused a bit of a stir, but I think Ed Sabol is an absolute lock for the Hall. The man created the NFL today by showing it to everyone. There’s a big difference in reading about the game and actually getting to see it. He brought the NFL to a level that newspapers never could, and for that he deserves to go in immediately.

The man is also in his mid-90’s, so his induction had to happen sooner rather than later anyway.

So now we’re down to two spots left.

All the guys listed deserve to go in, but I think the goal every time should be to put in the best players of the group, and the best two players left are pretty clear to me. Carter is obviously one of them, and the other has to be Dawson.

The guy is very likely the best center of all time. Not putting him in the Hall is a travesty. But instead, the voters went with Sharpe and Dent — two guys who are certainly not the best at their respective positions.

Now, that obviously does not mean they aren’t Hall-worthy — both players clearly are. But when you have a guy like Carter who is second only to Jerry Rice and Dawson who likely is the very best at his position on the same ballot, the choice should be clear.

But that’s the problem with the Hall of Fame. The guys voting don’t know nearly as much about the game as they think they do. They’ve never played a day in their lives, so they can only see the surface. Why else would we see undeserving quarterbacks and other skill positions going in all the time? It’s because these people don’t know how the game works and they credit (or likewise blame) a player far too much and hype them right into Canton.

It’s time for current Hall of Fame players to take over the voting process. Maybe once guys who actually know what they’re talking about are making the calls, the Pro Football Hall of Fame will cease to be a joke.