A few threads seem to be converging at the moment. In the one that has Eli Manning in the title, Reaser (or somebody) just hit on the point that being the best at your position is a good starting point (and some would simply say a requirement) for any Hall of Fame candidate. And now here we have a reference to Shofner, one of the handful of best candidates if we use that very valid yardstick. For five or six years, 1958 to '63 -- a pretty long time in football, by the way -- it seems pretty clear that he was considered the best receiver in the NFL by just about everybody, and yet he's not even in the discussion at all (except here), simply because after his run as the best he started getting hurt and kind of fell off the map.NWebster wrote:I'd want to toss Del Shofner's name in amongst the list of seniors who should get in right now. And that's the way I like to think of it, which is obviously very different than the voters. I basically say, of the potential senior poll who should be in tomorrow if there were no limit. That's a list that's probably 10 or 11 long, we'll ok, now the next 5 years are taken care of. The voters seem to decide on a whim every summer, usually (Richter, Stabler) because the guy happened to die right before the nomination, which is as spurious a reason as any. Personally, Stabler was never on my "should be in tomorrow" list.
Well, I guess I've said this before, but it just bugs me, that's all.
