Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

JuggernautJ wrote:

Ken Crippen wrote: The problem they are going to face is that if they have pretty much ignored the seniors in the past, it does not give them a lot of time to do adequate research to find the best candidates. As you said, they may just mail it in (pick just all-decade players) or cave to the loudest lobbying groups. Only time will tell.

Does the PFRA really have no role to play in the decision making?
I'm just a nobody but several of "us" are respected members of the football historians community (if such a thing exists).
Without dropping names there are opinions here who matter and are influential.

Is there nothing we can do to help ensure the Hall of Fame makes the right choices here?
If the folks making these calls are in need of "adequate research" isn't that kind of right up our alley?

If... "The PFRA officially supports four candidates for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Lavvie Dilweg, Duke Slater, Mac Speedie, and Al Wistert" what are we/can we do to try and make that happen?

I'm not suggesting battering down the doors to The Hall or telling people their decisions are uninformed.
I'm wondering if there's a way we can constructively guide the decision makers to more educated choices.

I feel like we have a responsibility to help make sure this comes out right.

Unfortunately, even the members of this esteemed organization can't come to a consensus on who belongs snd who doesn't....

JeffreyMiller wrote:Unfortunately, even the members of this esteemed organization can't come to a consensus on who belongs and who doesn't....

True, which is why I think PFRA should be granted "line item veto" powers. The HOF sends us the list of who is going to be enshrined, and PFRA gets to cross off one name, as in "there is no way THIS guy should be in Canton!". While we can bicker and argue for days over whether or not Ken Anderson or Mac Speedie should be in this year's class, its much easier to simply put a black line across Jerry Jones's name.

However, there are a lot of selectors who are not even interested in hearing opinions or other research.

This is sad.

JeffreyMiller wrote: Unfortunately, even the members of this esteemed organization can't come to a consensus on who belongs snd who doesn't....

It seems we have come to a consensus on at least four senior candidates (from the Hall of (the) Very Good page):
"The PFRA officially supports four candidates for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Lavvie Dilweg, Duke Slater, Mac Speedie, and Al Wistert."

Ken Crippen wrote: I work directly with the selectors to talk about players and give opinions. They also reach out to me for opinions, so I help guide them in any way I can. The Hall of Fame has referred me to people. I know that John does the same.

However, there are a lot of selectors who are not even interested in hearing opinions or other research.

Thank you, Ken, for the feedback.
And my thanks and respect to the good folks who do help guide the selectors to an educated decision.

Now, what can the rest of us do?
Would something as archaic as a letter-writing campaign be effective?

I would be willing to buy my local selector lunch if I could put the info sheets on our four preferred nominees into his hands and have an intelligent discussion about same...

Is there a way a less influential PFRA member could be helpful?
Any way at all?

JuggernautJ wrote:

Ken Crippen wrote: I work directly with the selectors to talk about players and give opinions. They also reach out to me for opinions, so I help guide them in any way I can. The Hall of Fame has referred me to people. I know that John does the same.

However, there are a lot of selectors who are not even interested in hearing opinions or other research.

Thank you, Ken, for the feedback.
And my thanks and respect to the good folks who do help guide the selectors to an educated decision.

Now, what can the rest of us do?
Would something as archaic as a letter-writing campaign be effective?

I would be willing to buy my local selector lunch if I could put the info sheets on our four preferred nominees into his hands and have an intelligent discussion about same...

Is there a way a less influential PFRA member could be helpful?
Any way at all?

Most selectors have either email addresses or Twitter accounts. You can contact them with your thoughts. Being respectful will take you farther than "What the hell are you thinking?"

Some may be willing to get a free lunch, but you probably have to build up a relationship with them first.

I'd say it's worth contacting as many of the selectors as anyone has time to contact. Identifying oneself as a member of the PFRA would help and anyone who has published in The Coffin Corner should mention that. As Ken said, be polite. Since there seems to be some momentum behind prioritizing players who made an all-decade team, maybe focus on that, as virtually everyone we've discussed here was named to an all-decade team. One approach might be to commend the sentiment of focusing on guys who made an all-decade team, while underscoring the need to go back to the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s and not just focus on more recent years.

And for people who are especially passionate about Emerson, Latone, Lewellen, Karras, Shofner, Putnam, etc., put together a fact sheet using the four at the PFRA site as a guide to, again, find tidbits besides the usual "he made all-pro four times, played in five Pro Bowls and made the all-1950s team." It's fine to reiterate that stuff but the selectors all likely know that. If you look, for example, at the points on the second page of Wistert's fact sheet under Offense, I imagine any selector who actually takes the time to read it would be struck by the fact that Philadelphia's offense did things during his career that the Eagles never did at any other time in the almost 90 years of franchise history.

As another example, Shofner was a unanimous all-pro selection five times (unanimous, not consensus). I don't know for certain but I think it's very likely he's the only player in pro football history to do that and not be in the HOF. That would be a pretty good starting point for a Shofner fact sheet.

The biographies of the members of the Hall of Very Good on the website include lots of tidbits that can expand somebody's case beyond the usual stuff (although this applies mostly to those elected to the HOVG in more recent years; the biographies Bob Carroll wrote in the early years are, unfortunately, quite short). So if you look at the bios of Duane Putnam and Jim Katcavage, you see a lot of the same approach we used with the four fact sheets. Ditto for others.

If Ken and Matt have done film evaluation of the player in question and he scores at or near a HOF level, that would also certainly be worth mentioning. John Turney has done all kinds of valuable stuff at his website. I'm sure there's lots of information there that can be tapped to bolster the cases of a lot of these players. The trick is to find a balance between providing new ways of looking at a player without making it so long that no one will read it.

Andy Piascik wrote:I'd say it's worth contacting as many of the selectors as anyone has time to contact. Identifying oneself as a member of the PFRA would help and anyone who has published in The Coffin Corner should mention that. As Ken said, be polite. Since there seems to be some momentum behind prioritizing players who made an all-decade team, maybe focus on that, as virtually everyone we've discussed here was named to an all-decade team. One approach might be to commend the sentiment of focusing on guys who made an all-decade team, while underscoring the need to go back to the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s and not just focus on more recent years.

And for people who are especially passionate about Emerson, Latone, Lewellen, Karras, Shofner, Putnam, etc., put together a fact sheet using the four at the PFRA site as a guide to, again, find tidbits besides the usual "he made all-pro four times, played in five Pro Bowls and made the all-1950s team." It's fine to reiterate that stuff but the selectors all likely know that. If you look, for example, at the points on the second page of Wistert's fact sheet under Offense, I imagine any selector who actually takes the time to read it would be struck by the fact that Philadelphia's offense did things during his career that the Eagles never did at any other time in the almost 90 years of franchise history.

As another example, Shofner was a unanimous all-pro selection five times (unanimous, not consensus). I don't know for certain but I think it's very likely he's the only player in pro football history to do that and not be in the HOF. That would be a pretty good starting point for a Shofner fact sheet.

The biographies of the members of the Hall of Very Good on the website include lots of tidbits that can expand somebody's case beyond the usual stuff (although this applies mostly to those elected to the HOVG in more recent years; the biographies Bob Carroll wrote in the early years are, unfortunately, quite short). So if you look at the bios of Duane Putnam and Jim Katcavage, you see a lot of the same approach we used with the four fact sheets. Ditto for others.

If Ken and Matt have done film evaluation of the player in question and he scores at or near a HOF level, that would also certainly be worth mentioning. John Turney has done all kinds of valuable stuff at his website. I'm sure there's lots of information there that can be tapped to bolster the cases of a lot of these players. The trick is to find a balance between providing new ways of looking at a player without making it so long that no one will read it.

When I last talked with Joe Horrigan, he said the same thing. Focus on new ways of looking at players instead of the usual listing of stats and honors. That is where research should be going.

Andy Piascik wrote:And for people who are especially passionate about Emerson, Latone, Lewellen, Karras, Shofner, Putnam, etc., put together a fact sheet using the four at the PFRA site as a guide to, again, find tidbits besides the usual "he made all-pro four times, played in five Pro Bowls and made the all-1950s team."

Thanks Andy - All these years and I never knew there were fact sheets behind Dilweg et. al. I'd like to do one for Latone and I suspect the Sacksteder relatives may be interested in doing one too. Unfortunately, neither of those guys is even in the HoVG so we can't make their names clickable. One step at a time I guess.