Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

To be honest Paul ... I would have rather none of them got elected. I feel that other players or coaches could have replaced them. Of the names you mentioned, I only endorsed Ed Sabol, who was before them. The rest werent deserving in my opinion, though I did respect Brandt, Wolf, Nunn and Steve Sabol and Polian as well, though he should be kicked out of future voting.

Brian wolf wrote: ↑Tue Aug 18, 2026 9:22 pm To be honest Paul ... I would have rather none of them got elected. I feel that other players or coaches could have replaced them. Of the names you mentioned, I only endorsed Ed Sabol, who was before them. The rest werent deserving in my opinion, though I did respect Brandt, Wolf, Nunn and Steve Sabol and Polian as well, though he should be kicked out of future voting.

I’m not Paul I’m Andy from Zoneblitz

Sorry Andy ... I thought Paul responded back ... I stand by what I said. It doesnt matter ... Kraft and other owners will be voted in. Especially the whole Rooney family ... the contributors category has created all the mess we have been talking about.

Going back 10+ years I think voters did fairly well with the coaches and contributors (one noted exception for me was putting in Bill Cowher) and I feel they would have continued to make progress, except the rule changes making they compete with seniors-plus a math that really means enough voters to elect just one from coaches/contributors/seniors, has made a complete mess last two years. That has only resulted in deserving coach and contributors (especially BillB and Kraft) delayed elections-which means other deserving candidates are delayed even longer.

Perhaps Board has modified the election rules for class of 2027 to address that problem and impact-we will have to seen if and when Hall announces any changes in coming weeks.

Are all five of those coaches (Seifert, Parker, Flores, Coughlin, and Mike Shanahan) each good enough to be Hall of Very Good at minimum?

SeahawkFever wrote: ↑Thu Aug 20, 2026 11:03 am Are all five of those coaches (Seifert, Parker, Flores, Coughlin, and Mike Shanahan) each good enough to be Hall of Very Good at minimum?

Flores lowered the bar to get in. The bar now is be above .500 and win two Super Bowls.

saturdaysarebetter wrote: ↑Wed Aug 12, 2026 12:12 pm Coach A: 11 years, 114-62 .648 winning percentage, 10-5 post-season .667 winning percentage, 8 winning seasons, 9 non-losing seasons
Coach B: 15 years, 104-75-9 .581 winning percentage, 3-1 post-season .750 winning percentage, 10 winning seasons, 11 non-losing seasons
Coach C: 12 years, 97-87 .527 winning percentage, 8-3 post-season .727 winning percentage, 6 winning seasons, 7 non-losing seasons
Coach D: 20 years, 170-150 .531 winning percentage, 12-7 post-season .632 winning percentage, 10 winning seasons, 12 non-losing seasons
Coach E: 20 years, 170-138 .552 winning percentage, 8-6 post-season .571 winning percentage, 10 winning seasons, 13 non-losing seasons

Coach C is in the hall of fame.
He had the lowest regular season winning percentage of the five.
He had the lowest number of winning seasons and tied for the lowest rate of winning seasons (50%) of the five.
He had the lowest number of non-losing seasons and the lowest rate of non-losing seasons (58%) of the five.
Coach B had a higher winning percentage, a higher post-season winning percentage, a higher rate of winning seasons and a higher rate of non-losing seasons than Coach C.

Coach A is George Seifert
Coach B is Buddy Parker
Coach C is Tom Flores
Coach D is Tom Coughlin
Coach E is Mike Shanahan

Make it make sense please.

It's a fair question, and I think there are two answers.

The first general answer is that with the exception of the slam dunks (Belichick (ha), Shula, Walsh, Noll, etc.), coaches are simply much harder to evaluate in a PFHOF context, with I think a wider range of criteria valued differently by different people, and more opaque understanding of a given coach's influence. As a result, when non-slam dunks are elected, there tends to be a wider range of reasons. I don't know these exactly of course, but just looking at the most recent coach inductees, I would guess that these are their key reasons:

* Don Coyell — elected in merged coach/contributor category, making him more of a contributor than a coach
* Dick Vermeil — Greatest Show on Turf, success with three franchises
* Tom Flores — 2x champ, iconic franchise/team
* Bill Cowher — 1x champ, 2x SB, iconic franchise
* Jimmy Johnson — 2x champ, iconic franchise/team
* Tony Dungy — 1x champ, built two championship-level teams

Then I do think there are other reasons that have a variety of politics related. I absolutely think that Cowher and Johnson were helped by their TV careers, which allowed the Hall to get more coverage because of the nature of The Knock for them. Flores benefits from a strong fanbase, which we've seen helps seniors and coaches, not just because fans have campaigns, but because voters might be more inclined to push candidates who will make a big splash in their markets.

To what degree Flores or Dungy were credited for their respective races and racial barriers, I can't say; for Dungy, I just think he's another one of those slam-dunks, even at just one ring, because he built that Bucs team, then took over the Colts and built their defense to become a champion, and left both clubs in good enough shape that each reached the Super Bowl after he left. And again, what helped Flores more: being the NFL's first Mexican starting QB and its first minority head coach to win a SB, vs. simply being the head coach of a two-time champ from a passionate fanbase?

So that's the general answer: after the slam dunks, coaches are much harder to judge.

And that leads to the more specific yet related second answer, which is that we can run through all of these coaches and explain possible reasons why someone might be in or not. Looking at your list, it's possible that these are factors:

* George Seifert — seems to get judged as someone who "won with Bill Walsh's team"
* Buddy Parker — harder for me to say why he didn't get in years ago, but most recently he didn't get in because of accusations of racism that some voters held onto until the final debate
* Tom Coughlin — his time is coming. He only recently came on the radar and has been behind some of his peers, including Holmgren
* Mike Shanahan — pretty much the same as Coughlin, though I'll add that I bet there are voters who view his success as more tied to his players, similar to Seifert, as opposed to the coaches who had a longer run of success, or success at multiple franchises, or who had undermanned teams that won

PaulPFHOF wrote: ↑Wed Aug 19, 2026 12:59 pm Going back 10+ years I think voters did fairly well with the coaches and contributors (one noted exception for me was putting in Bill Cowher)

But the voters didn't select Bill Cowher. The Blue Ribbon Committee did.