Owens choosing not to attend his Hall of Fame induction

[Ness]

I'm not about to knock Ken or his website, but I wasn't aware there was enough film footage available of Jerry Kramer to make the clear determination that he was not good in pass protection.

They're 'snapshots' based off the available film/games/highlights. So definitely not on reaching any 100% conclusions -- though can come to some conclusions of varying degree. It is always best to go off what you see, in my opinion, and if you can't see everything (the further you can back in history such as with Kramer/Packers in this example) then you take what you see with your own eyes and put it together with other information to come to your conclusion.

Similar for stats and why I find them even more meaningless in the modern era, because we can literally watch all the games. Stats only relevance to me is historically to fill-in the blanks when there's no available film to watch -- and I'd still rather read a descriptive article on the game from the time than trust stats without any context.

Either way, regardless if one agrees with the selection or not, being selected the best guard for the first 50 years was more than enough. Logic dictates he should have went in if not immediately then pretty quickly based on that alone.

Depends on the statistical approach. PFF actually does watch every player on every snap, and THEN categorize their performance compared to their peers. It's not just chronicling the end result, but how the results are achieved. That's a major difference.

[Ness]

Owens did rightfully earn a place in the HOF, but honors can never be awarded on the timetable of the former player. It doesn't work that way, you don't tell organizations prepared to spend a considerable amount of time and money to give you an honor, when they should make the selection. And given the idiotic and team-draining activities of Owens' career, three years is a short wait for an immortal honor.

And we definitely don't want a purely statistical approach by outside organizations to determine who reaches Canton. Numbers cannot reflect the context of the era, many of the HOF receivers who played before Owens would have had a big increase in their numbers had they played under the same rules. Another issue is the devaluing of winning by the data-driven crowd. It should always matter in the HOF conversation.

But the HOF isn't going by their bylaws on how players are supposed to be voted in, then I think it's fair for a player that feels he's earned a specific honor to question the integrity of the foundation. And we know this to be true now. The writer that came out and said he wouldn't vote for Owens if he knew he wasn't going to show up. Or the guy that didn't vote for Eric Dickerson to get into the HOF because he held out. People are letting their personal feelings get in the way of the job they've been given to carry out. That's dangerous.

PFF chronicles their rankings back until 2006. So for anything before that, I'd agree that the best we have before that time would be sportswriters and the word of players, and coaches. Within the coming years though that shouldn't be the case. At best, it should be 50% in terms of how much say that the sportswriters have.

Winning should be always taken with a grain of salt. Football is a team game, but the HOF is an individual achievement. There are guys who won a lot, but shouldn't even sniff the HOF.

[Ness]

Leave the voting up to an institution like Pro Football Focus or Pro Football Outsiders that actually track simply what is done on the field, and actually work with NFL coaches. You won't have the problem of a bunch of old guys' personal feelings getting in the way of giving someone they've rightfully earned.

As bachslunch mentioned, I don't see how using an institution like PFF or Football Outsiders would eliminate bias. Also, Football Outsiders in particular has shown a complete inability to grasp historical context (I recently saw an NFLN Top10 show where Mike Tanier is astonished to learn that Dan Reeves played in the NFL...the same Mike Tanier who wanted Paul Warfield kicked out of Canton because he never had a 1000-yard season), so I wouldn't really want that 'groupthink' entity determining who gets into the HOF.

Furthermore, as Reaser mentioned, the film for contemporary players is readily available to everyone. I don't need Aaron Schatz and Football Outsiders "reverse engineering" what I saw actually happened on the football field, and then informing me prior to the 2017 season that the Dolphins offense will not experience a dropoff with Tannehill's injury because, according to DVOA, Jay Cutler has consistently been a top-10 QB over the years (Miami's offense fell from 17th to 28th, passer rating went from 95.5 to 78.7).

I don't think you can take personal opinion/bias out of the HOF voting process, but I don't think you'd want to do that anyways. You just want enough qualified voices in the room to come up with the most accurate consensus. I think the Pro Football HOF is much better than the Baseball HOF in terms of recognizing its best players...even from a pure statistical standpoint. MLB's top statistical batters and pitchers (Bonds, Clemens, Rose, etc.) are still waiting to get in.

Well, in your example you're talking about Schatz making a prediction about the Dolphins. Not reviewing chronicled data. So that's different, and irrelevant really. No one would need to "predict" anything for voting someone into the HOF.

Yes, film is readily available. But are you spending your entire day, every day reviewing every player from every team, on every snap, and comparing the performance to everyone else in similar situations? Is your analysis peer reviewed by other people doing the same task?

Like I said in another post, I'm talking mostly about the future ahead. Sportswriters need to play less of a role. Or have their responsibilities shared. In depth football analysis goes back to maybe the mid 2000's. So for every player that has played since then we now have better information about how they really performed compared to a bunch of dudes eyeballing it, with a potential factor of having their personal feelings with any player via direct interaction get in the way of voting them in.

And I don't think a QB in the top ten of DYAR or DVOA is going to cut it for HOF candidacy. Romo is probably in the same boat, and he won't get in. Neither will Rivers. If you said top 5 for most of their prime career, then Jay Cutler not getting in would be a problem.

BTW, Cutler had only 3 seasons where he was top ten in DYAR. And he's fallen as far as 33rd and 39th. So, not a good example to use.

[Ness]

Don't agree. Kramer had to wait forever for several reasons, not least because his skill set was flawed (as Ken Crippen's film study site clearly demonstrates, he was not good in pass protection). That alone puts him more along the lines of a bubble candidate, and I'm not surprised he had the wait he did given this alone. He also had some other unique baggage in addition, as I've outlined in the recent thread on him at the HoF comments section. It became a somewhat unusual perfect storm in his case.

And a number of the "ton of other players" who had to wait for the most part and are still waiting played during the 60s and before, when HoF election was in its infancy, or played a position that historically gets little respect such as safety, kicker, punter, guard, or WR. Several of those guys did not have the luxury afforded to folks like Tom Mack, Lynn Swann, Harry Carson, and similar guys of staying on the ballot for a long time, plus they did have to contend with a from-infancy full boat of candidates.

And as has been pointed out before, the view of TO was that his "antics" affected things in an on-field way, plus he did drop a lot of balls. I think he's eminently HoF worthy, though frankly 3-4 ballots doesn't seem unreasonable for him, especially if Cris Carter took six. It's probably one reason Kevin Greene, who punched out one of his assistant coaches, also waited a long time. That's not true of the character issues of Taylor, Lofton, or Lewis best as I'm aware.

There are quite a few players that have played after the 60's, that have been waiting. I'm sure Broncos fans know of two certain linebackers that should be there. And there are players inducted that were never even the best at any one time in the NFL at their position. Like Troy Aikman. But he won rings, so whatever. Probably the same reason Eli will be enshrined over Rivers or Romo.

I mean, regardless Owens' antics, I don't see how that's worse for the game than being indicted for a double murder (Lewis), or going on trail for rape twice (Lofton). Lawrence Taylor was a coke head, that was suspended. How did that not effect his team? Yet who cares, first ballot because he was still a "nice guy".

I'm a 49ers fan, and I still think Owens to this day has character problems and things he did that were wrong that he are just apart of his nature. But he should have been a first ballot HOF player. Especially if Randy Moss was.

The reporter that came out and said he wouldn't have voted for him if he knew beforehand that Owens wouldn't attend the ceremony is the reality of what players have to deal with. Guessing there isn't anything in the bylaws permitting personal grudges to be involved in the decision making process.

[bachslunch]

Don't agree. Kramer had to wait forever for several reasons, not least because his skill set was flawed (as Ken Crippen's film study site clearly demonstrates, he was not good in pass protection). That alone puts him more along the lines of a bubble candidate, and I'm not surprised he had the wait he did given this alone. He also had some other unique baggage in addition, as I've outlined in the recent thread on him at the HoF comments section. It became a somewhat unusual perfect storm in his case.

And a number of the "ton of other players" who had to wait for the most part and are still waiting played during the 60s and before, when HoF election was in its infancy, or played a position that historically gets little respect such as safety, kicker, punter, guard, or WR. Several of those guys did not have the luxury afforded to folks like Tom Mack, Lynn Swann, Harry Carson, and similar guys of staying on the ballot for a long time, plus they did have to contend with a from-infancy full boat of candidates.

And as has been pointed out before, the view of TO was that his "antics" affected things in an on-field way, plus he did drop a lot of balls. I think he's eminently HoF worthy, though frankly 3-4 ballots doesn't seem unreasonable for him, especially if Cris Carter took six. It's probably one reason Kevin Greene, who punched out one of his assistant coaches, also waited a long time. That's not true of the character issues of Taylor, Lofton, or Lewis best as I'm aware.

There are quite a few players that have played after the 60's, that have been waiting. I'm sure Broncos fans know of two certain linebackers that should be there. And there are players inducted that were never even the best at any one time in the NFL at their position. Like Troy Aikman. But he won rings, so whatever. Probably the same reason Eli will be enshrined over Rivers or Romo.

Of course there are some post-60s players who have been snubbed. But the number pre-70s is far greater. Back in February, I posted a personal top-70s Seniors snubs list in order. Here it is:

1-10: Lavvie Dilweg, Al Wistert, Duke Slater, Johnny Robinson, Chuck Howley, Billy Howton, Maxie Baughan, Harold Jackson, Ken Anderson, Randy Gradishar.

11-20: Verne Lewellen, Jim Tyrer, Lemar Parrish, Jimmy Patton, Walt Sweeney, Cliff Harris, Ox Emerson, Del Shofner, Riley Matheson, Dick Barwegen.

21-30: Alex Karras, Winston Hill, Jim Ray Smith, Mac Speedie, Dave Grayson, Cliff Branch, Tommy Davis, Drew Pearson, Bobby Dillon, Gene Brito.

31-40: Bobby Boyd, Billy Wilson, Eddie Meador, Harold Carmichael, Duane Putnam, Joe Fortunato, Deron Cherry, L.C. Greenwood, Bill Forester, Joe Klecko.

41-50: Ed Budde, Abe Woodson, Joey Browner, George Kunz, Larry Grantham, Tom Sestak, Mark Gastineau, Houston Antwine, Earl Faison, Bill Bergey.

51-60: Pete Retzlaff, Lester Hayes, Art Powell, Joe Jacoby, George Christensen, Jerry Smith, Donnie Shell, Mike Stratton, Gene Lipscomb, Ken Gray.

61-70: Lionel Taylor, Gale Gillingham, Roger Brown, Louis Wright, Marvin Powell, John Niland, Todd Christensen, Otis Taylor, Tommy Nobis, Lee Roy Jordan.

Of the 70, 20 of them had their careers post-60s. Eight had their careers during the 20s-40s. That leaves 42 from the 50s and 60s. Assuming one doesn't quibble with this as a top-70 list.

And you'll forgive me if I scoff about Broncos fans and their thinking. They're right about Gradishar, Karl Mecklenburg (who will likely become a Senior next year), and Steve Atwater, but they also squawk about Tom Nalen, Tom Jackson, Dennis Smith, Rod Smith, and Riley Odoms, who are all HoVG at best -- while forgetting about Lionel Taylor because he's pre-SB. These folks need to get a filter, and get one badly. Raiders fans are about as bad when it comes to Tom Flores, Jim Plunkett, and Dave Dalby, though they're right about Cliff Branch and Lester Hayes and perhaps Todd Christensen, while of course forgetting all about the pre-SB Dave Grayson (and Art Powell, if you consider him a Raider).

I mean, regardless Owens' antics, I don't see how that's worse for the game than being indicted for a double murder (Lewis), or going on trail for rape twice (Lofton). Lawrence Taylor was a coke head, that was suspended. How did that not effect his team? Yet who cares, first ballot because he was still a "nice guy".

Because TO's antics are considered to have occurred "on the field," which the HoF says is to be taken into account; the voters are considering the sidelines and locker room to be part of this, which I think is reasonable. I think it was also a factor with Kevin Greene, who punched out his assistant coach. What Lewis, Lofton, and Taylor did occurred beyond "the field," and per the HoF's selection guidelines is not fair game to consider. You're going to have to convince me that what Lewis, Lofton, and Taylor did negatively affected their teammates' on-field performance beyond the vague rhetorical question posed above. Plus I don't think any of the voters were under any delusion about how "nice a guy" Taylor was -- in fact, I remember reading some articles at the time questioning whether he might be denied first ballot HoF honors because of it. He wasn't.

There's a big difference here.

I'm a 49ers fan, and I still think Owens to this day has character problems and things he did that were wrong that he are just apart of his nature. But he should have been a first ballot HOF player. Especially if Randy Moss was.

I'm surprised that Moss was a first ballot player, too. But he did have more freakishly good seasons than TO did, too. TO never had as good a year as Moss's 2007, for starters. Moss was top 10 in receiving yards 8 times to TOs 5. He was top 10 in receiving TDs 9 times to TOs 7, and led the league 5 times to TOs 3. And Moss's dropped ball rate was lower than TOs; if I can find the article by Chase Stuart that addresses the dropped ball issue again, I'll post a link. That's just enough to suggest a difference between the two.

And I'll say it again -- nobody thinks TO wasn't a HoFer. Geez, it's no shame he got in third ballot. Billy Howton, Del Shofner, and Harold Jackson would probably kill to have been inducted so fast, never mind at all.

The reporter that came out and said he wouldn't have voted for him if he knew beforehand that Owens wouldn't attend the ceremony is the reality of what players have to deal with. Guessing there isn't anything in the bylaws permitting personal grudges to be involved in the decision making process.

And as I said above, bias is going to exist no matter what election method you choose. In fact, I think it would be worse if players and coaches were the committee members; they'd just stump for their teammates, like the old BBHoF Veterans Committee did. But I think you have to look at results -- and I think the writers have done a good job, especially with the regular candidates, thus far. If they refused to elect TO at all, I'd agree with you.

[Bryan]

Well, in your example you're talking about Schatz making a prediction about the Dolphins. Not reviewing chronicled data. So that's different, and irrelevant really. No one would need to "predict" anything for voting someone into the HOF.

I am talking about Schatz reviewing FO's chronicled DVOA data of Jay Cutler's career, then using that data to make a wildly inaccurate prediction. If the "data" that Schatz and FO produces cannot even properly categorize a career of a skill position player like Jay Cutler, of which a plethora of statistics are available to the casual observer, then how can you trust FO's "data" to weigh in on a HOF debate between Steve Hutchinson and Alan Faneca?

Yes, film is readily available. But are you spending your entire day, every day reviewing every player from every team, on every snap, and comparing the performance to everyone else in similar situations? Is your analysis peer reviewed by other people doing the same task?

Is any one person doing this for FO or PFF? I thought PFF was just different people trying to give coaching assignment grades to players without any knowledge of their actual assignments. I thought their grading system was the typical -1-0-+1 stuff on every play, but I admit I’m not familiar with the intricacies of their system. I didn’t know that FO even watched football games…I thought they just did box score number-crunching with liberal ‘adjustments’ and so forth.

Like I said in another post, I'm talking mostly about the future ahead. Sportswriters need to play less of a role. Or have their responsibilities shared. In depth football analysis goes back to maybe the mid 2000's. So for every player that has played since then we now have better information about how they really performed compared to a bunch of dudes eyeballing it, with a potential factor of having their personal feelings with any player via direct interaction get in the way of voting them in.

I agree that the NFL HOF process isn’t perfect. But, again, I don’t see how you can eliminate bias. I’m not sure what you are basing your “in depth football analysis goes back to maybe the mid 2000’s” statement, but I am all for relevant data being available to the voters.

BTW, Cutler had only 3 seasons where he was top ten in DYAR. And he's fallen as far as 33rd and 39th. So, not a good example to use.

Verbatim from Football Outsiders: In addition, our system doesn't seem a difference between Jay Cutler and Ryan Tannehill because Cutler was a top-10 quarterback in passing DVOA two years ago.

I used it as an example because the conclusion was proven to be empirically incorrect and you had a decade’s worth of stats on Cutler’s career which refuted Schatz's conclusion as well. Cutler’s seasonal Rate+ was almost always between 92 (below average) and 104 (slightly above average). Cutler’s top-10 DVOA season referenced by FO was merely a 104 Rate+, with the 2015 Bears offense repeating their 23rd ranking in 2014 and falling from 15th to 23rd in passing yards. Cutler was the proven definition of 'mediocre' and had fallen off a cliff in 2016 with a miserable Rate+ of 85, and he was replacing a QB in Ryan Tannehill whose Rate+ was 107. With so much data available, one would think that going from Tannehill to Cutler would result in an offensive output drop-off for Miami, no?

If this is the type of ‘in depth football analysis’ which will be guiding the HOF voters for future classes, then I’m not sure how that will be an improvement.

[TanksAndSpartans]

Not sure about dragging Lofton's name into this. I wasn't able to find a whole lot. I did find this article which looked thorough but really long: http://articles.latimes.com/1987-06-21/ ... ton-lofton

[Jay Z]

Not sure about dragging Lofton's name into this. I wasn't able to find a whole lot. I did find this article which looked thorough but really long: http://articles.latimes.com/1987-06-21/ ... ton-lofton

Lofton had one incident (with a teammate) where no charges were ever filed. The second was second degree sexual assault. That resulted in acquittal. Second degree sexual assault meant he was accused of forcing oral sex.

Lofton obviously had a seedy side, but I would need more than that to declare him a criminal, I guess.

[bachslunch]

Not sure about dragging Lofton's name into this. I wasn't able to find a whole lot. I did find this article which looked thorough but really long: http://articles.latimes.com/1987-06-21/ ... ton-lofton

Thanks for posting this link. Looks like Lofton was acquitted on one case and in the second the DA refused to press charges, if this article is accurate. I’ll retract any inadvertent inclusion of Lofton above in a wrongdoing finger point on my part, and would suggest Ness do likewise.

[TanksAndSpartans]

I posted the link in response to Ness who said "on trial for rape", but my brain didn't process the "trial" part and I thought of Dave Meggett which is why I googled it right away (hoping it wasn't similar). I really just skimmed the article so I didn't catch much on the first case other than that there was no conviction. For the second case, my impression is the author of the article believed Lofton was targeted because of who he was and again there was no conviction. I think the second case did change the course of his career as there was a another Packer who I believe was convicted of a crime around the same time and for Lofton, I think it lead to the end of his time in Green Bay.