Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Another list of players who shouldn't be in the HoF, courtesy of someone from USA Today:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/tro ... srcref=rss

Honestly, I've seen worse, but one can definitely do better. He lists folks like Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Richard Dent, and Paul Hornung (though for this last, he focuses on the gambling issue when he could just as easily concentrated on his on-field numbers). Some are borderline folks I'm okay with to varying degrees but are big-hall types: Bob Griese, Bob Hayes, Harry Carson, Andre Tippett, maybe even Curtis Martin.

I can see an argument that Marcus Allen, Ray Guy, and maybe even Cris Carter are overrated, though I'm not sure they're HoF mistakes.

I think he misses the mark on a few:

-Warren Moon. He may not be as elite as some (in Rasaretnam's rankings for example, he 31st on "best 4," 28th on "best 7," and 19th on "best 10"), but he's within the acceptable limit, plus he deserves extra credit for being the first highly accomplished black QB.

-Marv Levy and Bud Grant. Losing 4 Super Bowls isn't necessarily enough to make one unworthy, plus both have solid regular season W-L records.

-Troy Aikman. According to Rasaretnam, at least, Aikman is well within the HoF acceptable range for QBs (10th, 10th, 13th) for regular season stats, never mind having won 3 Super Bowls.

And as usual, no mention of older folks like Joe Guyon, Wayne Millner, or Charles Bidwell. Also surprisingly no mention of recent Senior mistakes like Floyd Little, Dick LeBeau, and Emmitt Thomas, nor of a few recent regular candidate missteps like Fred Dean. And if he's going to have issues with someone like Griese, I'm surprised he doesn't bring up other so-so regular-season QBs with multiple championships like Bobby Layne and Terry Bradshaw.

Agree with your assessment...not a terrible list, but not all that good either. The first two guys on the list, Aikman & Carter, probably have the weakest "non-HOF" arguments along with Bud Grant. He didn't name any of the old-time guys (Walt Kiesling?), but as you said he also didn't name any of the recent head-scratchers like Floyd Little and Fred Dean.

Marcus Allen has been an interesting case to me. His 1982-1985 career is completely different than the majority of his career (i.e. the rest of his career). Even 1983 was a mildly disappointing season. To me, Allen had 3 great seasons, 1 good season in 1983, and a lot of seasons that look like Pete Banaszak seasons if Banaszak was a #1 RB. Allen was a great all-around talent (at least for awhile), and ended up compiling the stats, but its like those two aspects of his career never really meshed (if that makes sense). He's kind of like the Eddie Murray of NFL RBs.

His comments on OJ Simpson being in the Hall are interesting... and a great point. (he should definitely be in the HOF though)

Mostly he's just trolling, I think. On the one hand, he says Aikman's only in because of his three rings, but on the other hand, he says Carter doesn't deserve to be in because he never played in a Super Bowl. Huh? And Carter ONLY led the league in receiving touchdowns three times. (Since 1950, Rice - 6; Moss - 5; Owens, Alworth, and Carter - 3...)

But when he starts dissing my man Curtis Martin, that's where it just gets silly.

Jeremy Crowhurst wrote:Mostly he's just trolling, I think.

Well, he mostly is. Chase is considered a blogger for USA Today, not a writer. I know that sounds funny since blogging involves writing.

Apparently, he's one of the most successful AND despised bloggers on the web, and has had to either hide his address or move due to the extreme reaction to his stuff, some of which is very good, some of which is just standard bar talk.

He uses a metric for some players called AV, which I'm not sure I follow. Even the creator of the metric says it's an approximation. Just the fact that it's being used across all positions has me suspicious -- even baseball WAR doesn't work very well across positions, for example short-changing catchers in comparison.

I've always try to know why Bob Griese has no love in here. No once remembres that he was selected to the Pro Boql ir AFL All-Star game 8 times and was named twice All-Pro (interestingly, the two years Roger Staubach won the Súper Bowl, and Staubach was never All-Pro).

Teo wrote:I've always try to know why Bob Griese has no love in here. No once remembres that he was selected to the Pro Boql ir AFL All-Star game 8 times and was named twice All-Pro (interestingly, the two years Roger Staubach won the Súper Bowl, and Staubach was never All-Pro).

Griese was Football Digest's "Player of the Decade" for the 1970's. Maybe he is like the Jack Morris of football?

Teo wrote:I've always try to know why Bob Griese has no love in here. No once remembres that he was selected to the Pro Boql ir AFL All-Star game 8 times and was named twice All-Pro (interestingly, the two years Roger Staubach won the Súper Bowl, and Staubach was never All-Pro).

For what it's worth, Rasaretnam ranks Griese 26th (C4), 24th (C7), and 17th (C10). It's pretty much within HoF limits but on the low side. He's better in all three categories than Moon, Kelly, Elway, Van Brocklin, and Luckman as well as much further down HoF-ers with multiple/historically important championships like Namath, Layne, and Bradshaw. Pretty good though not elite, and certainly reasonable enough for the HoF given his two SB wins.

bachslunch wrote:
For what it's worth, Rasaretnam ranks Griese 26th (C4), 24th (C7), and 17th (C10).

I am not familiar with Rasaretnam and what those rankings and the C4 and C7 bit means. Could you please let us know what that information signifies? Thanks in advance.