Open Letter: Historians' Plea to Change Seniors' Process

Between now and August, when the Pro Football Hall of Fame senior committee nominates three senior candidates to the board of selectors, Randy Gradishar will not make another tackle. Sterling Sharpe will not catch another pass. And, were he alive, Bob Kuechenberg would not execute another block.

The same can be said for the 28 other senior candidates on the semifinalist list released last week. The difference between those 28 and Gradishar, Kuechenberg and Sharpe is that Gradishar, Kuechenberg and Sharpe finished fourth through sixth in the 2023 senior vote behind inductees Chuck Howley, Joe Klecko and Ken Riley.

To build further[1] consistency in the senior election process and to manage expectations for senior nominees, we, the undersigned, request that the senior committee begin building and honoring a queue in which the three players who finish fourth through sixth in a year are nominees for the following year.

While the senior pool expansion is temporary through the Class of 2025, the 12-person senior committee can put this into practice this summer with two steps:

1. Nominate Gradishar, Kuechenberg and Sharpe to the full committee for election to the Class of 2024.
2. Announce that the fourth- through sixth-place finishers for 2024 will be the nominees for the Class of 2025.

How the Hall is already mitigating the senior pool backlog

The senior pool poses a well-known, widely discussed challenge to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: The depth and quality of the candidates is massive, and electing 1-2 seniors per year was far from alleviating the backlog. That backlog includes:

● 81 players named to one of the NFL’s all-decade teams between the 1920s and 1990s.

● 10 other players who won AP NFL MVPs.

● 4 other players who won AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year — including Gradishar.

Neither Kuechenberg nor Sharpe are among those 95 players. Until last year, the backlog also included Howley, Klecko and Riley, none of whom made an all-decade team (Howley was because his career highlights split across decades).

The Hall has taken two huge steps to chip away at the backlog: In 2020, it elected a special Centennial Class of 10 seniors, and in April, 2022, its board of trustees voted to increase the senior class to as many as three players per year for the next three years. These are tremendous efforts that we applaud.

Helping these NFL legends

Truly ending the backlog might not be possible. What is possible is to improve the experience these seniors go through every year around this time. In fact, announcing senior classes three years in advance of induction would be ideal, giving more of these legends a chance to celebrate with their families while reducing the anxiety many feel wondering if their wait of often 40-plus years will end — and whether they’ll be alive to see it.

Indeed, of the past 10 senior classes, 10 of the 22 were elected posthumously: Ken Riley, Cliff Branch, Bobby Dillon, Winston Hill, Alex Karras, Duke Slater, Mac Speedie, Ed Sprinkle, Ken Stabler, Dick Stanfel. Six of them died less than five years before their induction, some just months before. Of the 36 players elected as seniors from 2004-22, the average wait time for induction was 18.2 years as a senior — or, an average of 43.2 years following retirement.

“There were tears coming down, tears from being discouraged and frustrated, just the natural human emotion of being disappointed,” Gradishar said in January,2020, after receiving word that he had yet again missed induction to the Hall. “From being a modern-era finalist two different times and not hearing your name, from now being a senior candidate and not knowing if your name will be called, or if you will be left in the dark.”

Gradishar’s odds seem pretty good this year. If you want to understand his case, NFL historian John Turney broke it down brilliantly on this very website last month. Despite being a Bears’ fan, I’ve written at length extolling Sterling Sharpe’s case. And Bob Kuechenberg clearly has the voting body’s favor, having finished as a modern-era finalist eight times in his 20 years of eligibility.

While employing and honoring a public queue for 4 through 6 (and maybe 7 through 9) is a wonderful start, it won’t solve every challenge of the senior backlog. So, addressing the question of super seniors, i.e., players whose careers were primarily pre-1960, is another area worth exploring and should be a priority for the Hall .

One possible complaint of a pre-emptive vote is that it could stifle the voters’ conversation and debate and even strip the senior nominee announcement of its mystery. But the conversation, debate and mystery would merely be shifted to the results of the following year. For instance, this year’s debate would focus on 2025, while 2025’s debate would focus on 2026, and so on.[3]

As we see it, the time to debate the merits of Gradishar, Kuechenberg and Sharpe closed last year when the senior committee voted them as the “next three up.” In the Hall committee’s continued efforts to break through the senior backlog, we recommend and support the election of Gradishar, Kuechenberg and Sharpe for 2024, as well as the three candidates immediately behind them for the Class of 2025. That’s where the debate should be this year: 2025.

Let’s help these NFL legends gain just a bit more peace of mind.

Sincerely,

- Jack Silverstein, Chicago’s Sports Historian

- Kirk Buchner, Founder, Not in Hall of Fame Committee

- Bill Carroll, Director of HBCU Scouting, Pro Football Historian, Writer for Team NBS Media, Draft Expert for Zen 62

- Ken Crippen, Founder and Lead Instructor at the Football Learning Academy

- Bryan Frye, NFL researcher/writer

- Thomas Hall, Mile High Huddle NFL analyst

- Ron Katz, NFL Fan of the Year finalist and Pro Football Hall of Fame advocate

- Paul Lawrence, Pro Football Hall of Fame historian

- Vinny Lospinuso, Pro Football Hall of Fame analyst and advocate

- Chris Mouradian, Pro Football Hall of Fame analyst

- Jeff Schlegel, NFL podcaster.

- Evan Nolan, Founder, Not in Hall of Fame committee.