2024 Pro Football Hall of Fame Class

It blows my fucking mind the Super Bowl era is now far longer than the pre-Super Bowl era.

 

I remember watching the first one as a high schooler and wondering what the world would be like at the 25th and 50th Super Bowls (no Roman numerals in my mind then).

 

I remember watching the first one -- before it was actually called the Super Bowl -- and one of the networks (I was a small child and don't remember which network we were watching) was interviewing fans coming into the game to ask them what they thought the game should be called. I remember one lady suggested the "Superfantasma Bowl."

 

Well those last two names I didn't expect to see on there.

 

McMichael is pretty much on record as saying he’s only fighting to stay alive so he can see himself make the HOF.

I don’t know how you vote against that, especially when a guy has, at worst, a borderline case.

 

I agree that stuff plays a factor. I wonder if Maxie Baughan would have been picked if he hadn't died over the weekend. And then they go and pick a guy in Powell posthumously when Eddie Meador just turned 86.

They had eight living candidates to choose from.

I know in the end from an enshrinement standpoint it doesn't matter -- they are all getting in someday. But you just saw what happened with Baughan so why take that chance with Meador?

 

https://x.com/paytonsun/status/1694414975219941556?s=46&t=c5AOC9q8vMppUXCkKEgJZA

Not getting any easier to vote against Mongo.

 

Once you get to this point in the process for the committee finalists, there's no worries about induction.

For the contributor category since it was added and not counting the oversized 2020 class, only one didn't get inducted on that particular ballot (Tagliabue in 2017, getting in as part of the 2020 class).

For the coach only category setup, every coach has gotten in.

For the senior players, the last time one wasn't selected was 2009 (Claude Humphrey, who was later part of the 2014 class)

And for modern finalists, every class has had the max five in it since 2007.

You get to finalist level, you are going in.

 

Why bother with the extra step then? De facto emergency veto power?

 

I don't think that it's an extra step, it's the carry over from the original voting setup where there was a time when any candidate might not make it.

In 2004, for example, when the committee finalists were part of the final 15, so there were 13 modern candidates, only three modern guys got in. In 2005, only two modern guys got in.

Between those two years, there were 17 candidates that didn't go in at that time. 13 eventually did but four haven't (L.C. Greenwood, Lester Hayes, Bob Kuechenberg and Jim Marshall.)

Compare that to 2019, when all of the finalists have already been inducted and 2020 will be cleared when Torry Holt and Reggie Wayne get in.

The league has expanded and there are so many qualified candidates that I think the voters realize -- we can't turn away anybody, But the process to get the finalists to the voters hasn't changed. And there is the possibility that any of those three, or a modern candidate, doesn't get the required percentage. But it has become obvious if you get this far, you know you are getting in. Obviously the modern finalists don't know since that gets decided in the room.

 

All four of those guys should be in.