BREAKING: contributor list down to 9

[readjack]

Doug Williams' career is not eligible as a player, and the contributor category shouldn't be a back door without significant contributions. His career is eligible for a prominent exhibit in the Hall of Fame.

Interestingly, Doug Williams was eligible as a player this year:

https://www.profootballhof.com/news/202 ... s-of-2025/

I've never heard of anyone being eligible in two categories in the same year. It's a question that I assume the Hall will have to address moving forward.

[JameisBrownston]

who would be a third worse option than taylor glad we can agree on banks and plunkett id be ok with otis taylor actually 100%

Cecil. Fricking. Isbell. Stanley Morgan would also be very ?!?!

I was thinking about how awful isbell would be on that list of 9 that was the name i was thinking of at first but i typed otis taylor instead of isbell my apologies

The worst part is that Isbell may need to be elected before Lewellen and Dilweg receive any consideration. The Hall seems to be gatekeeping them behind him for some reason. It's almost like the way video game companies behave sometimes, where they're like "you better buy our crappy port of a crappy game no one asked for, because if it doesn't sell well, you'll never see this franchise again". Baffling.

[65 toss power trap]

Here's the graphic that was mentioned that really shows how out of step Canton is. And Naismith is actually up to 17 now.

[Brian wolf]

With McNally voted in, there probably doesnt need to be any other officials but I did think Tommy Bell and Pat Haggarty were decent. Seeman, Markbreit and Tunney got better, though Tunney blew the call on the Chandler FG to tie, in the infamous Baltimore-GB divisional playoff.

[JohnTurney]

Here's the graphic that was mentioned that really shows how out of step Canton is. And Naismith is actually up to 17 now.

Shorty Ray is in Canton ... but the point still stands -- it's too bad there aren't more

[JameisBrownston]

The PFHOF has the same number of baseball umpires as football referees inducted. For a long time, the former was higher. Who'da thunk it?!

[65 toss power trap]

Shorty Ray never officiated in the NFL, however, so I wouldn't go that far to say he was the first official. The HOF liked to trot his name out to deflect the fact there was no official in the Hall prior to McNally.

Ray was also, from what I can discern, incorrectly identified as the "supervisor of officials." He was the technical advisor of the rules to the commissioner, did a ton of analytics and testing of officials, but the commissioner retained the authority over officials. Samuel Wilson in 1956 was the first supervisor of officials who had full responsibility over the officials.

I think the "supervisor of officials" was appended posthumously, and the PFHOF picked that up as their official designation.

There's a really deep dive that was self-published by one of Ray's grandsons to try to have Ray's legacy reflect he was the father of the NFL rulebook and describes the political barriers that stymied that quest.

One other point: Mel Hein was the AFL's last supervisor of officials, and he is also enshrined in the Hall of Fame, but I don't count him as an official either.

[Bryan]

If the NFL is still in a woke stage, then Burl Toler would be a much better candidate than Doug Williams. When this category was initially revealed, I thought it was just going to be a vehicle for the owners to enshrine each other in the HOF. Kind of pathetic. Adams and Modell are two of the most reviled people in NFL annals. At least Adams was an original AFL investor. Not sure what Modell did...the bio comment of "key figure in transformational TV deals" is a joke. I didn't realize how difficult it was to sell the NFL to the TV networks.

[readjack]

What is the case for individual refs? How great is the "greatest" ref? Jerry Markbreit is a Chicago guy so I'm very familiar with both his work and his reputation, but is he that much better as an official than other officials? Or is there a ceiling on refs and Markbreit and others like him are merely able to function at that ceiling more than others?

Unless they contributed to shaping *how* refs ref, to what degree can you differentiate between refs? If you open the door to Markbreit, how many are then on his level? Compared to other contributors who have a clearly defined ally, refs strike me as an extraneous inclusion.

[readjack]

If the NFL is still in a woke stage, then Burl Toler would be a much better candidate than Doug Williams. When this category was initially revealed, I thought it was just going to be a vehicle for the owners to enshrine each other in the HOF. Kind of pathetic. Adams and Modell are two of the most reviled people in NFL annals. At least Adams was an original AFL investor. Not sure what Modell did...the bio comment of "key figure in transformational TV deals" is a joke. I didn't realize how difficult it was to sell the NFL to the TV networks.

"Woke" is a goofy word. White people hijacked it beyond its original meaning and gave it a narrow, pejorative definition, even though that definition could apply more broadly to concepts like the right-wing "Great Awakening," which is never called "woke." I could say it's "woke" to argue that the PFHOF is deficient until it adds a ton more refs.

I like the conversation around Doug Williams in Canton. Tough to define him as either a contributor or a senior, which clearly the Hall struggled with this year as he is in both. But there are two ways to look at his case. First is that he was the first Black QB to start and win a Super Bowl, a huge barrier to knock down and one that reverberates to this day. This might make him more of the "He got here first" type of innovator rather than the "He thought of something new" innovator, i.e. more Ralph Hay than George Halas. But that's fine with me. Yes, eventually *someone* would have been the first Black QB to win a Super Bowl, but he was the first and that matters.

Second, it's a make-up for what was clearly an interrupted Hall of Fame career. I don't think any owner would have basically chased his white franchise quarterback out of town, a guy who dragged a franchise from joke to NFC contender. Hugh Culverhouse tried to low-ball Williams, and Williams went to the USFL to get paid. He clearly was still good enough to play, as Super Bowl XXII showed. Now, it could also be said that if Culverhouse never chased him out, he might never have made it to Washington and a shot at a title, and without a title he's not in this conversation at all. That is true. But we don't know.

Every hall of fame comes with a ton of subjectivity — basically everyone below the icon level. If the original selection committee elected Ralph Hay in 1963, or Lavvie Dilweg, or Verne Lewellen, no one would think twice about it in 2024. And if they hadn't elected George Preston Marshall, we certainly would not do so today. Joe Namath had fantastic individual seasons, no doubt, but without that ring, he's probably lower on most people's all-time list than John Brodie. You're making a judgement call on Bud Adams for him being reviled, but other people won't care about that and they'll just see his accomplishments. The Hall is a question of who you want to honor. And Doug Williams is a massive figure in NFL history who many people would quickly honor ahead of others.