NFL's Hall-Of-Fame Sized Problem

The Hall of Fame for the NFL  is a version of luck, timing, and friends. For a lot of the most recently retired, it's timing.

As it sits, the first stage is easy to get into. You get nominated and have to be out of football for five years if you're a player.

From this list, which could number around 130, it is weeded down. A lot of the guys are obviously not going to make the cut, especially in years where two to three sure-fire Hall of Famers are looking at the first-ballot entry. Then, you get the second group, which is the vets committee. This group is sent to find the players you normally wouldn't know about, since they played before you were born, or in my case, before the NFL-AFL merger...or the AFL, period.

The problem becomes more obvious when you keep putting retired past players up against the here-and-now retiring players. For example, if you had to put say, Cris Carter against Charlie Joiner, who do you think your son would know more about? Or say, Marcus Allen against Barry Sanders?

Guys like Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith are two guys, who are shoe-ins when they come up for the selection, and automatically drops the number of slots from past players off.

The current list, as it stands, also runs into problems with trying to match up players from different skill positions against the talent another guy plays in. For example, was Ken Stabler a better passer than Chris Doleman was a defensive end/linebacker? Or was Ray Guy a better punter than Roger Craig was a running back?

Granted, some guys have been waiting a long time to get in. Some face the problem simply because of which position they play, while others may have been good at stats, but didn't play with a team that could reach the Super Bowl.

A couple of the ideas that could fix this problem are set out like this:

1) Expand the number of players to be enshrined. At the present, the maximum number of players that can make it in is seven if both Senior committee players make it in. What if this number was raised to 10, and do seven modern-era players and three senior players?

2) Set up three different voting fields. You could have a voting area for the offense, defense, and special teams. Granted, the special teams field in the NFL is abused, just check how many kickers are in there...you'd get the hint.

3) Revamp the election process. Right now, the election process is about as tough as the Supreme Court...death is usually the only way off, and some of these guys hold grudges for years. Some, to the point, have pointed out in public that they won't vote for this or that guy, for the worst reasons possible. By refreshing the voting system, it gives more up and coming writers a broader ability to pick on who the greats were, instead of letting some players run into a stone wall year after year.

It's not a perfect system, and it's not going to change overnight. But, can you imagine how you'd feel if you made it to the finals for the umpteenth time in a row, only to miss it year after year?

You know who you wouldn't be sending a Christmas card to.