Eli Manning and the Pro Football Hall of Chaos

I spoke to a half-dozen Pro Football Hall of Fame voters before the selection committee meeting, and they told me ...

I don’t think Eli Manning will be part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2025.

“Get back to me in five years,” one selector told me flatly. “Seriously, we got a lot of guys to get into the Hall of Fame. And he can wait.”

“Somebody’s gonna have to convince me that he belongs in the Hall of Fame at all,” another selector said.

Other selectors were less emphatic, though no less critical.

“I think he’s a Hall of Famer, eventually,” said one. “If we are talking seven or eight years from now, and we’re talking about putting Eli Manning in the Hall of Fame for two Super Bowl MVPs and creating some of the greatest moments in the history of the game, I’ll buy that. That’s cool.

“But don’t try to tell me that he is one of the greatest quarterbacks of his generation.”

I spoke to six of the 50 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee before their annual meeting, which took place in mid-January. There were some deeper arguments and more conciliatory remarks regarding Manning’s case. Should he be faulted for playing in a Golden Age of all-time great quarterback play? Shouldn’t he get some credit for handling the pressures of playing in New York so well?

But the overall tone of my conversations with selectors was highly skeptical toward Manning, at least as a high-priority candidate.

Photo by Erik Drost via Creative Commons Sharealike

Granted, I did not speak to Gary Myers, Manning’s presenter (his sponsor, essentially) who has been public with his support on Twitter, often with fellow voters poking him about it in the mentions.

I also did not speak to Jarrett Bell, who was tepid about Manning’s candidacy in a column for the excellent Hall of Football Substack.

“Surely, some heated discussion is coming with Manning,” Bell wrote. “He comes from football royalty and slayed the Patriots twice in the big game, but it’s a team game and individual honor. Never mind that Manning gamed the NFL draft system to shun the Chargers and land in the Big Apple. That’s not a factor for Hall consideration. That he was never one of the league's best quarterbacks, though, is indeed a factor.” You can read more here:

Veteran HOF Selector Shares Concerns

The selectors I spoke to were all more aligned with Bell than with Myers.

“I think Eli played most of his career as if he was rolling out of bed on a Saturday morning at the frat house after a mega-kegger the night before to play in an intramural game,” said one of the MORE charitable selectors. “You might get brilliance. You might get one of the greatest runs to the Super Bowl, twice. But you might get five picks. And that’s part of the beauty of Eli Manning.”

“I just can’t see putting him in the first year,” the same selector concluded. “I just can’t.”

Myers is certainly not alone in his support for Manning as a top-priority candidate. Manning would not have reached the finalist stage without some heavy boosters on the committee. But the selectors I spoke to were not even sure how the Manning conversation would go.

“It’s gonna be an all-day debate,” said one selector.

“I hope there’s not much conversation,” said another. “It’s ridiculous to spend time on him. He’s not going to get in this year.”

I’ve been talking to many of these folks for years. So trust me: there’s nothing unusual about Hall of Fame voters disagreeing upon how much they disagree with one another.

Selections Will Be Reduced Until the Backlog Clears

We’ll discuss Eli more in a moment. But first, let’s discuss a little-publicized change in the balloting procedures this year.

In case you don’t know how the final PFHoF selection process works: the committee is presented with a list of 15 modern era finalists, which was selected through a series of whittling-down ballots over a period of months. The committee used to meet in person on the Saturday before the Super Bowl. Since COVID, they have met on Zoom during the playoffs. A presenter announces their candidate and makes a case for him. Then there’s debate, unless that candidate is someone like Joe Montana. After the presentations and debates, a secret ballot narrows the pool from 15 to ten candidates. The committee is told who made the cut, and there’s some more conversation.

After reducing the pool to ten, the committee used to vote again by secret ballot to select a top five. Those five players were that year’s modern-era Hall of Famers. (There was an additional yay-nay vote for each choice long ago, but that was abandoned.)

Starting this year, however the ten candidates will be narrowed to seven by a second ballot. Then selectors will pick five players from that group of seven. But there’s a major catch: a player must appear on 80% of those final ballots to reach the Hall of Fame.

“I think it’s inevitable that we’ll get three or four-man classes over the next couple of years,” one selector explained. “And that’s just going to make it harder on everybody.”

That’s right: the new procedure will probably reduce the number of players enshrined, even though most selectors (plus observers like me, and many fans) think there are already too many highly-qualified candidates stuck at the semifinalist and finalist stages.

Said one selector: “Everybody knows we have a backlog. Why in God’s name did they come up with this format? My concern is that they made this change because they feel there are too many speeches at the ceremony. That’s a sad reason to do this.”

“Maybe it’s the Deion Sanders factor,” said another. Several selectors believe the Hall of Fame is reacting to Sanders’ statement that the Hall is not selective enough.

Some committee members, including Bell, worry about Recency Bias: a fear that 21st century players are getting in too quickly while earlier players vanish down a memory hole. Unfortunately, as one committee member pointed out, the new procedures could end up pinching older candidates instead of helping them:

Let’s say only three modern day guys get in instead of five. Then you have 12 players with the possibility of coming back the next year instead of ten. Then, depending on how many first-time eligibles, it affects how many players even get into that group to be discussed.

As an example: let’s say only Antonio Gates, Jared Allen and Torry Holt get inducted this year. Next year, Drew Brees and Larry Fitzgerald are guaranteed first-time finalists, and Maurkice Pouncey is about 95% guaranteed. Now imagine that Philip Rivers and Jason Witten also make it as first-time finalists. That means two older players must be voted off Finalist Island! Eric Allen and Darrin Woodson, who are coming to the end of their 20 years of eligibility, would likely fall off the ballot.

But wait: there’s more! Earl Thomas did not make the final 15 this year. Let’s say he makes it next year. Goodbye, Wayne or Willie Anderson!

If you are looking to combat Recency Bias, don’t create a system that pushes the non-super-duperstars backward toward a cliff.

Anyway, brace for the possibility that only three guys from the last 20 years will be in this year’s class. Oh, I can see the conversations on social media now …

First Ballot, Fifth Place

One reason I am doubtful that Manning will be a part of this year’s Hall of Fame class: the selectors I spoke to didn’t even rank him very highly among first-time finalists.

Here’s one testimonial:

When you look at the resume for Kuechly and you look at the resume for Yanda, and you saw them play, it’s like: ‘OH FUCK. Those motherfuckers are Hall of Famers.’ It doesn’t take a whole lot of expertise to say, ‘That motherfucker is great.’ Luke Kuechly: eyeball test. Marshal Yanda: eyeball test. Terrell Suggs: eyeball test.

Eli: two incredible playoff runs. But the rest of it is like, ‘eh, that’s good.’

Here’s another:

Luke Kuechly was a Defensive Player of the Year and made the all-decade team. Marshal Yanda was an all-decade player who went to a million Pro Bowls. Suggs is the highest total sack produced all-time who is not in the Hall of Fame. Adam Vinatieri hit all the kicks in all the Super Bowls.

Just talking through it: Eli might be fifth among the first-year guys.

Kuechly was considered a stronger candidate than Eli by everyone I spoke to. But there did not sound like much urgency to rush Kuechly in on the first ballot. As already mentioned, and as you surely know, there are several finalists who have been waiting for many years, most notably a duo I call the Sammy Hagar receivers.

C’Mon Voters: Finish What You Started.

Torry Holt. Reggie Wayne. Personally, I have always considered them borderline Hall of Famers: the “other” receivers who live forever in the shadows of larger-than-life David Lee Roth-types Isaac Bruce and Marvin Harrison for some really rockin’ offenses.

Reggie Wayne is waiting. So is Torry Holt, but the public domain photos of him aren’t great. Jeffrey Beall via Creative Commons Sharealike.

Holt and Wayne are sixth-time finalists. They have similar dossiers. They have split the ballot for years. Andre Johnson was briefly log-jammed with them, but Johnson was more physically impressive and produced impressive stats for much weaker teams. Johnson reached the Hall of Fame in the 2024 class.

Steve Smith, another receiver with an outsized reputation/personality whose teams were never called the Greatest Show on Anything, has now entered the chat. There’s now another risk of a multi-player pileup, which the new voting procedures would only exacerbate.

“We’re getting to a point where we’re torturing those guys,” said one selector.

A few of the selectors I spoke to said that the committee appeared to be reaching a consensus last year that Holt should rank ahead of Wayne: Holt made the cut in 2024 from 15 to 10; Wayne did not.

Holt is now in his 11th season of eligibility, meaning his clock for being sent to the Seniors gulag is starting to tick. Under the circumstances, it should not be hard to queue Holt through in 2025, Wayne through in 2026 and Steve Smith in 2027. (With Larry Fitzgerald probably throwing a wrench into that timeline next year.)

One selector: “You’d think that this would be the year for Holt, but you just never know.”

Another: “I plan on saying, ‘look, I’m voting for Holt this year. We’ll get Wayne next year, but I’m voting for Holt.’ I’ll say it in front of the group, because I think that’s fair.”

Yet another: “Reggie Wayne belongs in,” said another. “If we’re putting in one of the wide receivers, in my mind, it has to be Reggie Wayne.”

So much for consensus! And no, I don’t tell one selector what the others said. They’ll read it here, after the vote.

As for Smith, everyone agrees that he is a Hall of Famer. But most agreed that he is not qualified to jump the line the way Andre Johnson did.

I’ve heard selectors say the same sorts of things about logjams in the past. Their best intentions – combined with the labyrinthine procedures – often end up just getting things even more jammed up.

Wading Carefully Into the Seniors Candidates

I talked about the Seniors/Coaches/Contributors at length with selectors. I don’t want to print most of it. I’ve already published more cusswords in this feature than I am comfortable with.

It sounds like Mike Holmgren will be rubber-stamped. That’s fine. I did not subject any of the selectors to my Tom Coughlin for Hall of Fame rant. They have Eli to deal with, for heaven’s sake.

The only complaints I heard about Sterling Sharpe is that there is already a wide receiver conundrum, and introducing a short-career guy from the early-1990s won’t help. Maxie Baughn is fine.

Selector Frank Cooney wrote at length about Jim Tyrer’s candidacy on his Hall of Football Substack. I encourage you to read it. Tyrer’s case is a wee bit complicated.

HOF Selectors mull historic decision

“It’s a fucking disgrace,” summarized one selector, though others were more diplomatic or open to the idea of Tyrer’s enshrinement.

The Hall of Fame committee is not supposed to factor off-field incidents into their choices. And Tyrer may well have suffered from CTE, making his selection a poignant reminder of the dangers of professional football, maybe.

The Too Deep Zone exists to celebrate touchdowns and Super Bowls. I’ll cover important issues when they are pertinent, but I would rather sidestep a tragic, problematic incident from 45 years ago as something that’s better left undredged. Perhaps the Hall of Fame was wise to make the same decision for many years.

And then there is Ralph Hay.

“I know who Ralph Hay is,” said one selector. “But really: who the fuck is Ralph Hay?”

Hay was the owner of the Canton Bulldogs who called the first meeting of what became the NFL at his Hupmobile dealership. Think of him as John Hancock: one of the main guys at the first important meetings; the one who supervised operations for a while before the more inspired Founding Fathers started really founding things.

We don’t see Hancock on our money or hear him rapping in Hamilton because everything except his big honking signature faded from the story once George Washington and the others showed up. Hay, similarly, sold the Bulldogs in 1923 when the NFL was still a rather loose organization of barnstorming teams. George Halas, Curly Lambeau, Bert Bell and others then begin building the league we are all now obsessed with.

At least Hancock stuck around for the whole revolution.

I have no idea how the Seniors ballot will shake out. But the days of rubber-stamping all of their selections are over. Nominees Buddy Parker and Art Powell received pushback and were not enshrined last year. And neither Parker nor Powell were as controversial as Tyrer or idiosyncratic as Hay.

And Here’s the Kicker

Multiple selectors told me that there is surprisingly strong support for Adam Vinatieri among former players and coaches, whose opinions (rightly) tend to sway voters. Vinatieri may have been a puny kicker, but many peers are going to bat for him.

Adam Vinatieri in Super Bowl XXXIX warmups. By Lance Cpl. Edward L. Mennenga, USMC via Wikimedia Commons.

That support will get Vinatieri in, though almost certainly not on this ballot.

“I’m not gonna waste a first ballot on him,” said one selector.

Another: “First time ballot for a kicker? Over guys who have been waiting?”

A third: “If this were a draft, and you had to pick from the 15 guys on this board, Adam Vinatieri would not be among the first five picks.”

Makes sense. But here’s another perspective: “He’s got balls of ice. Big giant stones. You have to risk your mortal soul on whether you make a kick: who are you gonna get to kick for you? If it’s me vs. El Diablo, I’m picking Vinatieri.”

But even that final selector cautioned, “Are really putting Vinatieri in ahead of Jared Allen?”

Eli Makes the World Go Round

So here’s where we stand:

• I haven’t mentioned Antonio Gates yet. Most selectors assume he is getting in this year.

• Everything else is a mess.

The wide receiver logjam is at its usual standstill, despite/because of everyone’s efforts to clear it. Another logjam is forming behind Willie Anderson, with fellow offensive linemen Jahri Evans and Marshal Yanda waiting their turn. Jared Allen and Terrell Suggs represent a potential mini-jam, with Eric Allen and Darrin Woodson splitting the old-timey defensive back ticket. Fred Taylor has some table-pounders but has been taking the local train through the process.

And then there’s Eli.

“It all goes back to the quarterback narrative: they get too much of the credit for winning and too much of the blame for losing,” one selector said. “And that’s just the way it is. But I always ask ‘Why is it that way? Aren’t we smart enough to think critically about this?’”

Every selector I spoke to was critical of Manning, with others (like Bell) voicing some very public skepticism. But two of the selectors I spoke to mentioned “reading the room” and the possibility that Manning’s boosters will sway the committee.

One selector said that of the 50 people at the meeting, only about 20 ever say anything about anyone, and no one knows what the rest are thinking. “Paul Zimmerman called them ‘silent assassins’” this selector joked. Two of the folks I interviewed told tales of blocs of naysayers ripping a borderline candidate’s case on the phone or over dinner, only to fall mostly silent in the actual meeting, leaving the one detractor who spoke up dangling on a limb.

In the old days, the committee debated face-to-face, voices got loud, feelings sometimes got bruised. But you know how large Zoom meetings go: it’s easy to just be a face in a box with a muted microphone. Less debate means less opposition, which isn’t always a good thing.

So Manning could get waved through on the first ballot due to a passion disparity, with the pros much more willing to fight than the cons. That said, the opposition sounds pretty dedicated, and all it now takes is a dozen people ranking Manning (or anyone else) sixth or seventh out of seven to deny them enshrinement for a year.

Still, every selector makes it clear that they have no idea what most of the other members of the committee will do. Hence decades of unpredictable results.

Or, as one selector put it: “This is trying to herd cats, man.”

This photo tilted me. I forgot Eli and Saquon were teammates for two years. It’s like seeing Shakespeare hand off to Post Malone. By Keith Allison via Creative Commons Sharealike.