I visited the HOF about 10 years ago and came away highly disillusioned. It's just a bunch of uniforms on mannequins/hangers, and a series of busts in what amounts to an oversized, dimly lit walk-in closet. Didn't feel like anything celebrational or educational at all. (Also, going through my photos right now, I'm reminded that the gift shop was selling Colt McCoy's book for some reason.)
So HOF debates, in general, don't particularly interest me much anymore. Put everybody in. Put nobody in. Doesn't really matter.
Which brings me back to Eli. As I have said before, I would not vote for him myself, but I would be fine with him getting in if it meant we never had to talk about him again. (Because, yes, going into the HOF actually takes your name out of the public eye.)
That said, here's a fun stat I accidentally stumbled upon a while back:
Last summer I drove several hours out of my way to visit and was also disappointed, and somewhat surprised at the cost. My brother, who was with me said we should have saved the gas.
I have not been there in 20 years. The college football hall of fame in Atlanta should be their model as to how to overhaul it. Baseball's Hall is great but it's not like Canton can build a picturesque, historic downtown and lake next door
Eli's career record is 117-117 and the only category he ever led the league in was INTs. He had two insane playoff runs but also never won a playoff game outside of those two runs (8-4 playoff record). No one thinks Jim Plunkett was a Hall of Famer but while Eli has him beat in endurance, their careers have remarkably similar shapes (Plunkett was 72-72 as a starter, 2 SB wins, 8-2 in the playoffs).
I'm with those who think Eli doesn't belong in the Hall at all, but given his last name and that he beat the big evil Patriots twice, he's likely getting in eventually.
Here's my issue with Eli. Had he not won 2 SB MVP trophies there would be zero debate for him going in; there's nothing about his career numbers that indicate a HOF worthy career - nothing.
But he did win 2 SBs and won MVP twice. So that counts. But, both of those runs included a a lot of one-score games where a bounce of the ball or a different official's call changes the outcome. If Asante Samuell doesn't drop an INT that he normally catches 9 out of 10 times we're not having this dicussion.
Similarly, those Giants teams were mediocre overall; barely making the playoffs. As a Cowboys fan I'm well aware that if Miles Austin doesn't lose a ball in the lights in 2011 in week 13 the Giants don't even make the playoffs that year.
I can go back and find literally a dozen-plus instances where Eli's entire debate is wiped out....on plays that have nothing to do with him. If your candidacy is a giant jenga tower depending on a dozen plays that have nothing to do with the candidate....are you really a legitimate candidate?
Can anyone name another HOFer who, if ONE play was changed that he had NOTHING to do with...everyone would agree he's not a HOFer?
His overall career is so decidedly mediocre that 8 games are the foundation, first and second floor of his candidacy, and those floors have dozens of vulnerabilities.
IM the ONLY NYG fan who cant stand the idea of Eli in the HOF. I suffered so hard those first 40 games, 4 entire seasons. Then after 07 postseason more avg play, some good to below avg at times. 2011 a fantastic season, and then, back to cruddy play. Every season, look where he ranks. 1 season, one postseason, that's about all there is at GREAT play. Compare with Rivers. Another guy who shouldnt go in HOF but is SO much better game in game out.
Giant fans are blind with their loyalty and have no memory. We were ALL complaining about Eli. Now they just dont, retconned that he was good outside of those 23 games
Oh, I agree as a fellow Giants fan. I insisted to my friends that draft Eli pretty much guaranteed two Super Bowls. I didn’t realize that it would be exactly that and 14 other underwhelming years. The reward for two playoff runs should be a nice income stream from goofy commercials, not a bust in the HOF.
Another sensational deep dive, Mike. I wish I had said that or said it as well.... thanks for the referrals; I welcome the traffic and further exposure. The overall issue is complex when you consider the realities of a 20-year window vs. the Senior Abbyss and what seems to be an inclination toward the comfort of recency bias. We selectors must overcome personal and regional bias and expand our field of vision beyond those most current memories. We must consider inductees whose feats should be celebrated 100 years from now. We already have All-Decade teams. Your post encouraged some great comments, such as those by Ron K, that may show an understanding of the dilemma, maybe even better than do some of the selectors. Finally, although Dieon's rants are extreme, he has a point. We must raise the bar and that will not be easy while so many very good players linger year after year as it seems we try to "create" their HOF credentials. Thanks again, Mike.
The problem with raising the bar is that there is precedent set by the players that came before. So you really cannot raise the bar farther than that at this point
Thanks for the response, Josh. I may be missing your point. What I am saying is we may be looking at players at a certain position, such as wide receiver, with too much emphasis on their stats rather than any unique personal achievement that would distinguish them as a HOFamer. If, for example, we raise the bar regarding their specific, almost unique, contribution to the game -- assuming they had one -- that might be more appropriate. Johnson recently leapfrogged into the HOFame because he had physical traits and circumstances different from the others, yet he was just as dominant, or maybe moreso. Steve Smith Sr. is a latter-day entry into the bottleneck and is ascending because his traits, contributions, and circumstances are unique to him. So, in that sense, I believe we can raise the bar and not pre-ordain HOF worthiness without considering all things and all others.
I just want to say, if I can without messing it up and making it insulting, that I very much like how the NFL hall of fame openly acknowledges the...emotional or what have you impact of what it was like to watch or play against these men. Or to say it another way, how it is in some ways like discussing ancient legends and heros and not reduced to dry statistics. Some heros burn so bright that they burn quickly, and no one sits around and tells stories of how ledgers were correctly balanced and statistics were normalized over time. I like the approach of making a story that is worth retelling. Who cares if Steve Smith Sr appears or can be made to appear good but not great on paper? When we watched him we knew he was worthy, and we still happily tell (and sometimes ebellish!) stories about him to this day. Thats good enough for me.
I agree. I feel like stat analysis is great for so many things, from making predictions to discussing roster building and tactics. For the Hall of Fame, if you are down to making some sort of deep statistical argument, you have probably lost it.
We need an "opponent's fans" metric about players. As a Cowboys fan...I never fretted over facing Eli Manning. Yeah, he had a number of devastating performances against the Cowboys, but he also had a number of debacles.
I often feel like fans are better judges of opposing players than their own players. Fans KNOW the opponents that are truly great and fear them. I never once feared Eli Manning.
Haha, that feels almost the opposite what I think when someone says "raise the bar." To me, "raise the bar" infers excluding people who "felt" impactful but whose numbers are relatively low.
My point, therefore, was that raising the required stats would be problematic because others are already in there whose numbers would not match the new standards.
However, I now see that is not at all what you meant. Sounds like you are leaning toward more subjectivity, rewarding the impact players make over pure numbers. A completely different discussion!
Oh, and Smitty needs extra credit for doing what he did with the QB hands he got dealt. ;)
I have always felt the entire HoF process is stupid. Either someone is worthy or they are not. If they are, they get in as soon as they are eligible. if 12 people happen to be worthy one year, all 12 get in. if no one is on a particular year, no one gets in. it is stupid to say someone is not worthy one year but somehow magically become so the next year.
Bear in mind the Hall of Fame is also a tourist attraction. Having 12 inductees one year, so everybody only gets 5 minutes on stage, and then next year have nobody come to the venue, would be a disaster from that standpoint.
Bah. The NY media is full of homers and sycophants. Give them a coach with a record slightly above .500 who says mean things to them and they'll call him the next Lombardi. They were still in the tank for Manning three years after he should have retired.
Watching the committee annually kick Drew Pearson in the face was one of the best days of my year. Nobody gave me the hate porn my hate boner needs. I may go watch that video of him crying in front of his grandchildren right now. God, that was great.
It's only January, but this is going on the shortlist of great internet comments of the year:
"Watching the committee annually kick Drew Pearson in the face was one of the best days of my year. Nobody gave me the hate porn my hate boner needs. I may go watch that video of him crying in front of his grandchildren right now. God, that was great."
Thats okay, the QB from Tulsa, who stayed after practice as a rookie catching passes from Staubach before going to his night job, still got voted in. Unlike some Hall Of Famers, he got every ounce out of his talent.
MIke, this piece is outstanding and thank you for the look behind the curtain.
That said. the Pro Football HoF is ridiculous. Sanders's claim that it's too easy to get is inane. As was noted by Ken, there are 22 players on field, and more starters at positions than that. Only voting in five per year has always been inadequate, and leads to the focus on GLORY BOY positions like QB and WR. That there's only one kicker in the HoF has always been an issue, and that the best kicker of all time apparently isn't going to be voted in this year is astonishing.
Despite how much more popular the NFL is than MLB, way more people complain about the MLB HoF, but it's so much closer to getting it right the its NFL equivalent. Vinatieri not getting elected this year would so much worse than Ichiro getting 393/394, but it won't get half the digital ink.
I'll admit to some bias about him being the best kicker of all-time as a Pats fan, but between the sheer number of clutch kicks, the points record, the FGM/FGA attempts records, I don't know how you can justify keeping him out other than by some neanderthal, "no kicker belongs in" take, and if you feel that way, you should probably have your vote taken away. It's a position.
These articles are a great insight into what happens behind the curtain at the HoF.
My recollection of SBs XLII and XLVI is that the DL was the key to Giants' victories on both occasions. But there's no HoF path for Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora or Jason Pierre-Paul. Strahan is in, but he was gone by XLVI and is more associated with 140+ career sacks than with SB XLII in particular.
Eli is the only choice to memorialise those Championship teams through HoF membership. I don't think there's any remotely plausible other candidate on the XLVI roster. Maybe Tom Coughlin on the staff, but he's not a slam dunk. Although it works a bit against the letter of the HoF, those two giant killing acts are huge and Eli is holding the axe. Without doubt he'll get in at some point and I don't think I really hate it.
What makes Eli's SBs different to Plunkett's is Allen/Long/Branch/Hendricks/Upshaw/Shell...etc
Maybe the fact those were both rather ordinary teams (barely above 0 point differentials; mediocre records, needed a lot of luck to get into the playoffs) indicates they shouldn't have a bunch of HoFers.
Great stuff here Mike. Some surprising voter quotes for sure.
One note on Eli that I've shared, but always fun to share it again: in his entire career, there were 798 votes cast for AP All Pro quarterback, combined 1st and 2nd team. Eli Manning received zero votes. In his career, 19 QBs received AP All Pro votes, including Bulger, Carr, Palmer, Pennington, Wentz.
Many of the PFHOF voters today were All Pro voters during Eli's career, and not one of them — including those who were pushing him this year as a first ballot HOFer — not one of them voted for him as All Pro. Ever. Not even 2nd team. Not once.
One of my go-to statements is, "when everything is important, nothing is important." I typically use this to defend against someone wanting an entire paragraph in a document to be bold and capitalized.
I feel the same way about halls of fame. When you have too many people who "belong" according to a subjective process, you don't really have a meaningful hall of fame. You have content for your trophy case.
This happens with pretty much everything that employs a selective process. The only way to avoid it is to establish objective criteria, but that doesn't make sense either since things change and evolve. Objective criteria struggles with change.
And really, what people want is the drama around the selection process.
If I had any say, the selectors would just look at the list of all eligible people and put in as many votes as they want for all of the people who meet their personal criteria. If you get 50 votes, you're in...because by everyone's definition you are a hall of famer. It's an objective view of subjective criteria.
This would cause one or two years of oversized intake--and that's fine. After that, there might be years where no one gets 50 votes, which is also fine. And when someone does get in, they'll get in while they're still fresh enough for fans to think they're famous. None of this "he's waited for 20 years, so he's due" idiocy. Nothing changed in those 20 years--why is the player suddenly worthy?
Most importantly, it would get rid of the need to compare people with completely different resumes against each other. These aren't job applications.
I'm sure there are problems with what I've suggested, since I'm not an expert in halls of fame. But I don't think it's any worse than a process that's designed more for debate and controversy than to actually celebrate people's accomplishments.
"None of this "he's waited for 20 years, so he's due" idiocy. Nothing changed in those 20 years--why is the player suddenly worthy?"
Something did change in those 20 years-- our understanding of that player and his place in history. The best example for this that I know of is Tim Raines in baseball. Raines is probably the second best lead off hitter of all time. He had the misfortune of playing at the same time as the best one though, which made people not appreciate him. Should he not have gotten in because of an accident of history?
We have to get over the idea that not getting into a hall of fame diminishes someone's accomplishments. It doesn't. Tim Raines was a great baseball player, and that will never change. He doesn't need to be a hall-of-famer to validate his career.
In my approach, Raines might have gotten in immediately since he wasn't being compared to people who came before and after him. Instead, he lingered until his final year of eligibility, because voters kept comparing him to an ever-growing list of players and didn't prioritize him until they were forced to do so. I suspect that the cut-off had more of an impact than people changing what they thought of him as a player. If one more HOF-worthy player retired a year or two earlier, Raines might have been left out entirely.
That's the problem I'm highlighting: the emphasis should be on "who deserves to get in", not "who deserves to get in this year." You can see from Mike's article that some football voters are making choices based on what they think will happen in future years, because the class sizes are capped. I can understand why they think this way, but I don't agree with it.
If I were going to start the HOF from scratch, I'd have a "small hall" for individual superstars, and a large hall for history, teams, and iconic moments. Thus, the 2007 Giants could be honored, along with Eli's desperation heave, without having to enshrine the QB as an "all time great" (which he clearly is not).
Maybe they do this already. It probably wouldn't help the jockeying and politicking for the individual honor, but it might give voters an out and assuage, just slightly, some wounds.
As for Eli, given how much the game has changed and continues to change (more black QBs, more protection for QBs, a massive shift towards passing the ball, and most recently more use of mobile QBs), it only makes sense to compare a player to his contemporaries. By that standard, Eli is maybe the 6th to 8th best QB of his era, behind the obviously qualified Peyton Manning (already in), Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and most likely Ben Roethlisberger (who also has 2 rings and was a better QB by nearly every measure imaginable). As individual players, I might also rank Philip Rivers and Matt Ryan ahead of Eli. But I might not if I weigh his legitimately good playoff performances in 2007 and 2011 more heavily than his regular season play.
As a model for my ideal, I'd point to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. That museum has a nice balance of the league's history and its players.
I guess my simplistic take is that it's called the Hall of FAME, not the Hall of Merit, Hall of Virtue, or the Hall of Honor. If you don't want the famous Eli Manning in the Hall, change the name of the Hall. For better or worse Eli was one of the best known players in the NFL in the late naughts, early 10s. I suppose the debate kind of falls along the lines of whether you believe the NFL is really first and foremost an entertainment business (in which case Eli certainly belongs) much like Hollywood or Pro Wrestling, or whether football at its core incarnates a higher celebration of pure human accomplishment and true competition even if diluted by the commercial noise that surrounds them (in which case he should not be there).
That counterargument actually doesn't work. Tebow wasn't really famous, he had minor celebrity status for a time. I suppose Mike's 20 year argument is a way to settle that - 20 years on Eli will still be celebrated in New York, Tebow will be a footnote in Denver and forgotten everywhere else. Trent Dilfer was never famous. But how do you write a history of the NFL in the 2000s-2010s without discussing Eli Manning?
Fame, stripped down, is “How many people know who you are”. It can also be transitory. Tim Allen was as famous as Jerry Seinfeld in the ‘90s, but he isn’t anymore.
So you’re right, but I think you’re wrong, too. Using the 20 year argument, Max McGee, Mike Renfro, Bernie Kosar, Matt Suhey, Archie Manning, Jim Kiick, Mark Bavaro, Ron Jaworski…you get the idea.
Every team has non-HOF level players who are celebrated twenty-plus years down the road. That shouldn’t be the bar.
Unless your history is a list of events -- and must include every Super Bowl winner -- I think it is quite easy to write a history of the NFL 2000-2020 without including Manning (and not just excluding him out of spite). His impact on the game was regional and transitory.
I hate this very literal argument. It's called the Hall of Fame because that's the transliteration from German from King Ludwig of Bavaria's Ruhmeshalle for distinguished people of his realm. Much like the Valuable in MVP, it was never actually meant to be pontificated on like a koan or a constitutional amendment.
I did say it was simplistic. Of course, the Bavarian Ruhmeshalle enshrined General Pappenheim, an impulsive, erratic performing, but loyal and brave general from a distinguished family. Not as talented as Tilly or Wallenstein, but he did score some upsets against the far superior Gustavus Adolphus. He also forced a personal switch to the Catholics from the Protestants in 1614 because he wanted to be with a winner. So you can see Eli's admissions does have some precedents.
Bill James always used to say that if you look at who the Baseball Hall of Fame enshrined, it was clear that the voters always took it to mean the best of the best. You can change the criteria, if you want, but doing so is straying farther from the original intent, not drawing closer to it.
1. Thank goodness Eli isn't going to get in 1st ballot. I can now sleep easier.
2. I really dont get the small Hall people in football. 22 starters (plus kicker) per team!!! That's alot of players. More players than the other sports. This 80 percent nonsense at the end reminds of the Baseball Veterans HOF committee that had something similar for a couple of years until it was proven that mathematically it was just ending up having players cancel each other out and hardly anyone getting in.
3. Some random guy from Canton in 1923....nah! Adam Vinatieri, absolutely....but not this year.
4. At some point with 32 teams and the 22 starters, the backlog will truly get insane. They might have to do a special 100th anniversary of the NFL class every 10 years to clear it out.
Thanks Mike for this very interesting and informative article!
Makes total sense, keep in mind Pro Football Hall of Fame began in 1963 and essentially the NFL began in 1920 - that makes the numbers really difficult the longer this goes on.
PS Vinatieri isn't competing against Hay - HOF Board grouped the three seniors, one coach and one contributor into a vote where a maximum of three can be elected. Sadly continues the player backlog, especially as they made the game more than the others. But they are not competing against any of the Modern category guys like AV.
I did not take away that he won’t get in on the first ballot; rather that he is not a slam dunk, and there is likely to be some opposition . And I think voters, looking at who is coming down the pike quarterback-wise, might be pushed into voting for him now if he is going to get in.
And I suppose it depends on your definition of small hall. Small hall can mean one thing when teams have five or nine starters, and something very different when teams have 22. And then there is the whole players-with-counting-stats versus players without.
Eli is the Pee Wee Reese of the NFL. Mediocre stats and career, stayed in the public eye long after playing, Reese through announcing games, Eli hugging the shirttails of media-omnipresent big brother Payton.
That 80% decision is a disaster - at least everyone has to pick five (I assume) so there should be at least 3 or 4 for sure. But small Hall people drive me nuts. Just celebrate players! I've been to the HOF, there are a lot of plaques but you get joy out of most of the names and if you're slightly confused about why someone is in there, it doesn't suddenly make you mad. Or, at least, it shouldn't. And don't listen to ex-players please!
Anyway, great writeup as always - so happy to have this back this year.
"We have a backlog.How should we fix it?" "I know let us allow even fewer selections!" "Brilliant!"
There's been log jam at wide receiver since Art Monk
I visited the HOF about 10 years ago and came away highly disillusioned. It's just a bunch of uniforms on mannequins/hangers, and a series of busts in what amounts to an oversized, dimly lit walk-in closet. Didn't feel like anything celebrational or educational at all. (Also, going through my photos right now, I'm reminded that the gift shop was selling Colt McCoy's book for some reason.)
So HOF debates, in general, don't particularly interest me much anymore. Put everybody in. Put nobody in. Doesn't really matter.
Which brings me back to Eli. As I have said before, I would not vote for him myself, but I would be fine with him getting in if it meant we never had to talk about him again. (Because, yes, going into the HOF actually takes your name out of the public eye.)
That said, here's a fun stat I accidentally stumbled upon a while back:
Eli Manning: 8 playoff wins.
Donovan McNabb: 9 playoff wins.
Last summer I drove several hours out of my way to visit and was also disappointed, and somewhat surprised at the cost. My brother, who was with me said we should have saved the gas.
I have not been there in 20 years. The college football hall of fame in Atlanta should be their model as to how to overhaul it. Baseball's Hall is great but it's not like Canton can build a picturesque, historic downtown and lake next door
Eli's career record is 117-117 and the only category he ever led the league in was INTs. He had two insane playoff runs but also never won a playoff game outside of those two runs (8-4 playoff record). No one thinks Jim Plunkett was a Hall of Famer but while Eli has him beat in endurance, their careers have remarkably similar shapes (Plunkett was 72-72 as a starter, 2 SB wins, 8-2 in the playoffs).
I'm with those who think Eli doesn't belong in the Hall at all, but given his last name and that he beat the big evil Patriots twice, he's likely getting in eventually.
Here's my issue with Eli. Had he not won 2 SB MVP trophies there would be zero debate for him going in; there's nothing about his career numbers that indicate a HOF worthy career - nothing.
But he did win 2 SBs and won MVP twice. So that counts. But, both of those runs included a a lot of one-score games where a bounce of the ball or a different official's call changes the outcome. If Asante Samuell doesn't drop an INT that he normally catches 9 out of 10 times we're not having this dicussion.
Similarly, those Giants teams were mediocre overall; barely making the playoffs. As a Cowboys fan I'm well aware that if Miles Austin doesn't lose a ball in the lights in 2011 in week 13 the Giants don't even make the playoffs that year.
I can go back and find literally a dozen-plus instances where Eli's entire debate is wiped out....on plays that have nothing to do with him. If your candidacy is a giant jenga tower depending on a dozen plays that have nothing to do with the candidate....are you really a legitimate candidate?
Can anyone name another HOFer who, if ONE play was changed that he had NOTHING to do with...everyone would agree he's not a HOFer?
His overall career is so decidedly mediocre that 8 games are the foundation, first and second floor of his candidacy, and those floors have dozens of vulnerabilities.
IM the ONLY NYG fan who cant stand the idea of Eli in the HOF. I suffered so hard those first 40 games, 4 entire seasons. Then after 07 postseason more avg play, some good to below avg at times. 2011 a fantastic season, and then, back to cruddy play. Every season, look where he ranks. 1 season, one postseason, that's about all there is at GREAT play. Compare with Rivers. Another guy who shouldnt go in HOF but is SO much better game in game out.
Giant fans are blind with their loyalty and have no memory. We were ALL complaining about Eli. Now they just dont, retconned that he was good outside of those 23 games
Oh, I agree as a fellow Giants fan. I insisted to my friends that draft Eli pretty much guaranteed two Super Bowls. I didn’t realize that it would be exactly that and 14 other underwhelming years. The reward for two playoff runs should be a nice income stream from goofy commercials, not a bust in the HOF.
Why cant NYG fans be happy with that? Why do they have to devalue the hall? There's already awards for SB and SB MVP. Was top 10 once in career.
Another sensational deep dive, Mike. I wish I had said that or said it as well.... thanks for the referrals; I welcome the traffic and further exposure. The overall issue is complex when you consider the realities of a 20-year window vs. the Senior Abbyss and what seems to be an inclination toward the comfort of recency bias. We selectors must overcome personal and regional bias and expand our field of vision beyond those most current memories. We must consider inductees whose feats should be celebrated 100 years from now. We already have All-Decade teams. Your post encouraged some great comments, such as those by Ron K, that may show an understanding of the dilemma, maybe even better than do some of the selectors. Finally, although Dieon's rants are extreme, he has a point. We must raise the bar and that will not be easy while so many very good players linger year after year as it seems we try to "create" their HOF credentials. Thanks again, Mike.
The problem with raising the bar is that there is precedent set by the players that came before. So you really cannot raise the bar farther than that at this point
Thanks for the response, Josh. I may be missing your point. What I am saying is we may be looking at players at a certain position, such as wide receiver, with too much emphasis on their stats rather than any unique personal achievement that would distinguish them as a HOFamer. If, for example, we raise the bar regarding their specific, almost unique, contribution to the game -- assuming they had one -- that might be more appropriate. Johnson recently leapfrogged into the HOFame because he had physical traits and circumstances different from the others, yet he was just as dominant, or maybe moreso. Steve Smith Sr. is a latter-day entry into the bottleneck and is ascending because his traits, contributions, and circumstances are unique to him. So, in that sense, I believe we can raise the bar and not pre-ordain HOF worthiness without considering all things and all others.
I just want to say, if I can without messing it up and making it insulting, that I very much like how the NFL hall of fame openly acknowledges the...emotional or what have you impact of what it was like to watch or play against these men. Or to say it another way, how it is in some ways like discussing ancient legends and heros and not reduced to dry statistics. Some heros burn so bright that they burn quickly, and no one sits around and tells stories of how ledgers were correctly balanced and statistics were normalized over time. I like the approach of making a story that is worth retelling. Who cares if Steve Smith Sr appears or can be made to appear good but not great on paper? When we watched him we knew he was worthy, and we still happily tell (and sometimes ebellish!) stories about him to this day. Thats good enough for me.
I agree. I feel like stat analysis is great for so many things, from making predictions to discussing roster building and tactics. For the Hall of Fame, if you are down to making some sort of deep statistical argument, you have probably lost it.
We need an "opponent's fans" metric about players. As a Cowboys fan...I never fretted over facing Eli Manning. Yeah, he had a number of devastating performances against the Cowboys, but he also had a number of debacles.
I often feel like fans are better judges of opposing players than their own players. Fans KNOW the opponents that are truly great and fear them. I never once feared Eli Manning.
Haha, that feels almost the opposite what I think when someone says "raise the bar." To me, "raise the bar" infers excluding people who "felt" impactful but whose numbers are relatively low.
My point, therefore, was that raising the required stats would be problematic because others are already in there whose numbers would not match the new standards.
However, I now see that is not at all what you meant. Sounds like you are leaning toward more subjectivity, rewarding the impact players make over pure numbers. A completely different discussion!
Oh, and Smitty needs extra credit for doing what he did with the QB hands he got dealt. ;)
Exactly
I have always felt the entire HoF process is stupid. Either someone is worthy or they are not. If they are, they get in as soon as they are eligible. if 12 people happen to be worthy one year, all 12 get in. if no one is on a particular year, no one gets in. it is stupid to say someone is not worthy one year but somehow magically become so the next year.
Bear in mind the Hall of Fame is also a tourist attraction. Having 12 inductees one year, so everybody only gets 5 minutes on stage, and then next year have nobody come to the venue, would be a disaster from that standpoint.
Bah. The NY media is full of homers and sycophants. Give them a coach with a record slightly above .500 who says mean things to them and they'll call him the next Lombardi. They were still in the tank for Manning three years after he should have retired.
Watching the committee annually kick Drew Pearson in the face was one of the best days of my year. Nobody gave me the hate porn my hate boner needs. I may go watch that video of him crying in front of his grandchildren right now. God, that was great.
It's only January, but this is going on the shortlist of great internet comments of the year:
"Watching the committee annually kick Drew Pearson in the face was one of the best days of my year. Nobody gave me the hate porn my hate boner needs. I may go watch that video of him crying in front of his grandchildren right now. God, that was great."
"Liked" for pure snark savagery.
Thats okay, the QB from Tulsa, who stayed after practice as a rookie catching passes from Staubach before going to his night job, still got voted in. Unlike some Hall Of Famers, he got every ounce out of his talent.
MIke, this piece is outstanding and thank you for the look behind the curtain.
That said. the Pro Football HoF is ridiculous. Sanders's claim that it's too easy to get is inane. As was noted by Ken, there are 22 players on field, and more starters at positions than that. Only voting in five per year has always been inadequate, and leads to the focus on GLORY BOY positions like QB and WR. That there's only one kicker in the HoF has always been an issue, and that the best kicker of all time apparently isn't going to be voted in this year is astonishing.
Despite how much more popular the NFL is than MLB, way more people complain about the MLB HoF, but it's so much closer to getting it right the its NFL equivalent. Vinatieri not getting elected this year would so much worse than Ichiro getting 393/394, but it won't get half the digital ink.
Baseball's Hall of Fame, while a lovely buiding and museum, is so batpoopy bananapants in every other way that I don't like talking about it.
I am guessing your Vinatieri take is a minority opinion, even on this thread!
I'll admit to some bias about him being the best kicker of all-time as a Pats fan, but between the sheer number of clutch kicks, the points record, the FGM/FGA attempts records, I don't know how you can justify keeping him out other than by some neanderthal, "no kicker belongs in" take, and if you feel that way, you should probably have your vote taken away. It's a position.
(grunt) Me think game is football players who do football plays. Me not like funny little men who not even have facemask and swing leg sideways.
Matt Ryan-types much more HOF-worthy than greatest leg-swinger of all time.
I am told a bunch of ex-players are really stanning for Vinatieri.
I actually don’t have a problem with Vinatieri getting in. He’s kind of the Mariano Rivera of the NFL.
It’s just that the number of spots is so limited.
These articles are a great insight into what happens behind the curtain at the HoF.
My recollection of SBs XLII and XLVI is that the DL was the key to Giants' victories on both occasions. But there's no HoF path for Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora or Jason Pierre-Paul. Strahan is in, but he was gone by XLVI and is more associated with 140+ career sacks than with SB XLII in particular.
Eli is the only choice to memorialise those Championship teams through HoF membership. I don't think there's any remotely plausible other candidate on the XLVI roster. Maybe Tom Coughlin on the staff, but he's not a slam dunk. Although it works a bit against the letter of the HoF, those two giant killing acts are huge and Eli is holding the axe. Without doubt he'll get in at some point and I don't think I really hate it.
What makes Eli's SBs different to Plunkett's is Allen/Long/Branch/Hendricks/Upshaw/Shell...etc
“He keeps stealing my MVP trophies.” -Justin Tuck on Eli Manning after their second SB win.
Maybe the fact those were both rather ordinary teams (barely above 0 point differentials; mediocre records, needed a lot of luck to get into the playoffs) indicates they shouldn't have a bunch of HoFers.
Great stuff here Mike. Some surprising voter quotes for sure.
One note on Eli that I've shared, but always fun to share it again: in his entire career, there were 798 votes cast for AP All Pro quarterback, combined 1st and 2nd team. Eli Manning received zero votes. In his career, 19 QBs received AP All Pro votes, including Bulger, Carr, Palmer, Pennington, Wentz.
Many of the PFHOF voters today were All Pro voters during Eli's career, and not one of them — including those who were pushing him this year as a first ballot HOFer — not one of them voted for him as All Pro. Ever. Not even 2nd team. Not once.
One of my go-to statements is, "when everything is important, nothing is important." I typically use this to defend against someone wanting an entire paragraph in a document to be bold and capitalized.
I feel the same way about halls of fame. When you have too many people who "belong" according to a subjective process, you don't really have a meaningful hall of fame. You have content for your trophy case.
This happens with pretty much everything that employs a selective process. The only way to avoid it is to establish objective criteria, but that doesn't make sense either since things change and evolve. Objective criteria struggles with change.
And really, what people want is the drama around the selection process.
If I had any say, the selectors would just look at the list of all eligible people and put in as many votes as they want for all of the people who meet their personal criteria. If you get 50 votes, you're in...because by everyone's definition you are a hall of famer. It's an objective view of subjective criteria.
This would cause one or two years of oversized intake--and that's fine. After that, there might be years where no one gets 50 votes, which is also fine. And when someone does get in, they'll get in while they're still fresh enough for fans to think they're famous. None of this "he's waited for 20 years, so he's due" idiocy. Nothing changed in those 20 years--why is the player suddenly worthy?
Most importantly, it would get rid of the need to compare people with completely different resumes against each other. These aren't job applications.
I'm sure there are problems with what I've suggested, since I'm not an expert in halls of fame. But I don't think it's any worse than a process that's designed more for debate and controversy than to actually celebrate people's accomplishments.
"None of this "he's waited for 20 years, so he's due" idiocy. Nothing changed in those 20 years--why is the player suddenly worthy?"
Something did change in those 20 years-- our understanding of that player and his place in history. The best example for this that I know of is Tim Raines in baseball. Raines is probably the second best lead off hitter of all time. He had the misfortune of playing at the same time as the best one though, which made people not appreciate him. Should he not have gotten in because of an accident of history?
We have to get over the idea that not getting into a hall of fame diminishes someone's accomplishments. It doesn't. Tim Raines was a great baseball player, and that will never change. He doesn't need to be a hall-of-famer to validate his career.
In my approach, Raines might have gotten in immediately since he wasn't being compared to people who came before and after him. Instead, he lingered until his final year of eligibility, because voters kept comparing him to an ever-growing list of players and didn't prioritize him until they were forced to do so. I suspect that the cut-off had more of an impact than people changing what they thought of him as a player. If one more HOF-worthy player retired a year or two earlier, Raines might have been left out entirely.
That's the problem I'm highlighting: the emphasis should be on "who deserves to get in", not "who deserves to get in this year." You can see from Mike's article that some football voters are making choices based on what they think will happen in future years, because the class sizes are capped. I can understand why they think this way, but I don't agree with it.
If I were going to start the HOF from scratch, I'd have a "small hall" for individual superstars, and a large hall for history, teams, and iconic moments. Thus, the 2007 Giants could be honored, along with Eli's desperation heave, without having to enshrine the QB as an "all time great" (which he clearly is not).
Maybe they do this already. It probably wouldn't help the jockeying and politicking for the individual honor, but it might give voters an out and assuage, just slightly, some wounds.
As for Eli, given how much the game has changed and continues to change (more black QBs, more protection for QBs, a massive shift towards passing the ball, and most recently more use of mobile QBs), it only makes sense to compare a player to his contemporaries. By that standard, Eli is maybe the 6th to 8th best QB of his era, behind the obviously qualified Peyton Manning (already in), Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and most likely Ben Roethlisberger (who also has 2 rings and was a better QB by nearly every measure imaginable). As individual players, I might also rank Philip Rivers and Matt Ryan ahead of Eli. But I might not if I weigh his legitimately good playoff performances in 2007 and 2011 more heavily than his regular season play.
As a model for my ideal, I'd point to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. That museum has a nice balance of the league's history and its players.
I'm not sure exaclty how many times people have mentioned the...negro...hall of fame to me, but every single one of those people have enjoyed it.
I guess my simplistic take is that it's called the Hall of FAME, not the Hall of Merit, Hall of Virtue, or the Hall of Honor. If you don't want the famous Eli Manning in the Hall, change the name of the Hall. For better or worse Eli was one of the best known players in the NFL in the late naughts, early 10s. I suppose the debate kind of falls along the lines of whether you believe the NFL is really first and foremost an entertainment business (in which case Eli certainly belongs) much like Hollywood or Pro Wrestling, or whether football at its core incarnates a higher celebration of pure human accomplishment and true competition even if diluted by the commercial noise that surrounds them (in which case he should not be there).
By that metric, no OL would ever make it.
Yeah, that “fame” argument is ridiculous. Tim Tebow is WAY more famous than, say, Anthony Munoz.
I can’t believe that someone is pushing, no, actually pounding the table for Tebow over Munoz.
Crazy!
That counterargument actually doesn't work. Tebow wasn't really famous, he had minor celebrity status for a time. I suppose Mike's 20 year argument is a way to settle that - 20 years on Eli will still be celebrated in New York, Tebow will be a footnote in Denver and forgotten everywhere else. Trent Dilfer was never famous. But how do you write a history of the NFL in the 2000s-2010s without discussing Eli Manning?
Fame, stripped down, is “How many people know who you are”. It can also be transitory. Tim Allen was as famous as Jerry Seinfeld in the ‘90s, but he isn’t anymore.
So you’re right, but I think you’re wrong, too. Using the 20 year argument, Max McGee, Mike Renfro, Bernie Kosar, Matt Suhey, Archie Manning, Jim Kiick, Mark Bavaro, Ron Jaworski…you get the idea.
Every team has non-HOF level players who are celebrated twenty-plus years down the road. That shouldn’t be the bar.
Unless your history is a list of events -- and must include every Super Bowl winner -- I think it is quite easy to write a history of the NFL 2000-2020 without including Manning (and not just excluding him out of spite). His impact on the game was regional and transitory.
I hate this very literal argument. It's called the Hall of Fame because that's the transliteration from German from King Ludwig of Bavaria's Ruhmeshalle for distinguished people of his realm. Much like the Valuable in MVP, it was never actually meant to be pontificated on like a koan or a constitutional amendment.
I did say it was simplistic. Of course, the Bavarian Ruhmeshalle enshrined General Pappenheim, an impulsive, erratic performing, but loyal and brave general from a distinguished family. Not as talented as Tilly or Wallenstein, but he did score some upsets against the far superior Gustavus Adolphus. He also forced a personal switch to the Catholics from the Protestants in 1614 because he wanted to be with a winner. So you can see Eli's admissions does have some precedents.
Why do all internet arguments end with the Bavarian Rumplestiltsken?
PITT THE ELDER!!!!
To be fair, compiling a list of most famous Bavarian generals is like forming a hall of Great Jets Draft Picks.
Buh-dum-duh!
Bill James always used to say that if you look at who the Baseball Hall of Fame enshrined, it was clear that the voters always took it to mean the best of the best. You can change the criteria, if you want, but doing so is straying farther from the original intent, not drawing closer to it.
Congratulations for making the most absurd HOF argument in the history of HOF arguments.
1. Thank goodness Eli isn't going to get in 1st ballot. I can now sleep easier.
2. I really dont get the small Hall people in football. 22 starters (plus kicker) per team!!! That's alot of players. More players than the other sports. This 80 percent nonsense at the end reminds of the Baseball Veterans HOF committee that had something similar for a couple of years until it was proven that mathematically it was just ending up having players cancel each other out and hardly anyone getting in.
3. Some random guy from Canton in 1923....nah! Adam Vinatieri, absolutely....but not this year.
4. At some point with 32 teams and the 22 starters, the backlog will truly get insane. They might have to do a special 100th anniversary of the NFL class every 10 years to clear it out.
Thanks Mike for this very interesting and informative article!
Makes total sense, keep in mind Pro Football Hall of Fame began in 1963 and essentially the NFL began in 1920 - that makes the numbers really difficult the longer this goes on.
PS Vinatieri isn't competing against Hay - HOF Board grouped the three seniors, one coach and one contributor into a vote where a maximum of three can be elected. Sadly continues the player backlog, especially as they made the game more than the others. But they are not competing against any of the Modern category guys like AV.
I did not take away that he won’t get in on the first ballot; rather that he is not a slam dunk, and there is likely to be some opposition . And I think voters, looking at who is coming down the pike quarterback-wise, might be pushed into voting for him now if he is going to get in.
And I suppose it depends on your definition of small hall. Small hall can mean one thing when teams have five or nine starters, and something very different when teams have 22. And then there is the whole players-with-counting-stats versus players without.
I would say he is far from a slam dunk, more of a shot from 10 feet behind the 3-point line while smothered.
My favorite Eli Manning stat is still that the 2 seasons the Giants won the Super Bowl are the only 2 seasons Eli Manning won a playoff game.
Eli is the Pee Wee Reese of the NFL. Mediocre stats and career, stayed in the public eye long after playing, Reese through announcing games, Eli hugging the shirttails of media-omnipresent big brother Payton.
Pee Wee Manning. I love it
Frank, I truly needed that after the wait today was ha. 🤣
That 80% decision is a disaster - at least everyone has to pick five (I assume) so there should be at least 3 or 4 for sure. But small Hall people drive me nuts. Just celebrate players! I've been to the HOF, there are a lot of plaques but you get joy out of most of the names and if you're slightly confused about why someone is in there, it doesn't suddenly make you mad. Or, at least, it shouldn't. And don't listen to ex-players please!
Anyway, great writeup as always - so happy to have this back this year.