Wow!!!
We knew that the Pro Football Hall of Fame was going to overhaul the process. Jim Porter, the CEO and President of the Hall, was openly upset (as were many of us) when six-time Super Bowl Champion Head Coach Bill Belichick failed to get in. He alluded to changes coming then, and in the past few weeks, we knew something was coming.
We didn’t expect this.
Let’s get right into the meat of what is changing.
First off, the Committee will see a large reduction from 50 to 28, with only 25 active and three non-voting participants. As for who has been removed, we don’t know yet, as they don't appear to have told the voters, but based on who has been critical and the second point, we think we have an idea of who that might be…
This would be based on geography. They announced that there will no longer be a representative for each NFL team; thus, we assume many of those voters will be axed. It will now be 27 at-large selectors with one PFWA representative.
That’s big enough, but the pools have now changed.
The Senior pool is no more. There is no longer a division between modern and senior, and it will be a combined group. This one is fascinating to us, especially considering the recency bias that we have seen in the last few years, where the most “recent” Senior has gotten in. As we don’t know who the new group of selectors will be, is it safe to say that a pre-1980 player candidate just saw their chances diminish?
Here is another interesting wrinkle. The Coaches and Contributors section will remain the same, with one candidate in each category pushed through as a Finalist; however…
The press release said the Contributor candidate will expand to include candidates who “contributed to the game outside of playing or coaching,” so they can consider a candidate’s full football résumé, which may include playing, coaching, and other contributions to the sport.
We have seen the Hall put forth interesting preliminary candidates (Doug Williams and John Facenda come to mind) for this group, and we might see more outside-the-box thinking here.
Another change is that there will be only 15 Finalists: 13 Modern, one Coach, and one Contributor. Also, and this is big, the math is different. As before, it will be cut down from 15 to 10 to 7; however, instead of voting for only five, they will vote for 6. The 80 percent threshold stays the same, but with more voting options, the four-person classes should end.
The carry-over process, whereby any candidate who finished in the top seven but did not make the Hall has also been thrown out.
We will have much more to say as more news trickles out.
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