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The Pro Football Hall of Fame’s 50th class will include modern-era candidates Dermontti Dawson, Chris Doleman, Cortez Kennedy, Curtis Martin and Willie Roaf.
Joining them at the Aug. 4 induction ceremony will be senior Jack Butler, a senior nominee.
The Steelers fared particularly well, with Dawson and Butler entering the Hall. Dawson played center for Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2000. Butler was a four-time Pro Bowl defensive back for them from 1951 to 1959.
Doleman was an eight-time Pro Bowl defensive end for Minnesota, San Francisco and Atlanta from 1985 to 1999. Kennedy spent his entire 11-year career with Seattle. He made eight Pro Bowls during that span.
Five-time Pro Bowler Martin played split his 11-year between New England and the New York Jets. He ran for 14,101 yards and reached the 1,000 yard mark during his first 10 years in the league. And Roaf was a dominant left tackle for New Orleans and Kansas City during a 13-year career that included 11 Pro Bowls.
The new class was selected by a 44-person selection committee Saturday afternoon in Indianapolis. The group was announced this evening on the NFL Network’s Road to Canton show.
Other finalists included Cris Carter, Charles Haley, Andre Reed, Aeneas Williams, Bill Parcells, Tim Brown, Jerome Bettis, Kevin Greene, Will Shields, former San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr. and Dick Stanfel, a second senior nominee.
The new class helps reduce an abundance of offensive linemen that will only get deeper starting next year when Larry Allen and Jonathan Ogden become eligible.
Perhaps surprising is that the class does not reduce the long list of wide receivers attempting to gain entry to the Hall. Carter, Brown and Reed will soon face additional competition from other star wideouts, such as Marvin Harrison, Terrell Owens and Randy Moss become eligible in years ahead.
The committee’s decision to not enshrine Haley and Parcells this year was mentioned by some analysts as surprising.
The selection committee had narrowed the field to 15 modern era finalists in January. Before that they had reduced the list to 26 from an original group of 105 preliminary nominees.
Stanfel and Butler were nominated in August 2011. Senior nominees are selected by a special committee that reviews the qualifications of players whose careers ended more than 25 years ago. Unlike the modern-era candidates, who are discussed and winnowed throughout the process, senior nominees move directly to the finalist vote.
We predicted in November that Reed, Roaf, Dawson, Martin and Parcells would get in from the modern-era nominees. Several readers posted their guesses today.
Last year’s inductees were Richard Dent, Marshall Faulk, Chris Hanburger, Deion Sanders, Shannon Sharpe, Les Richter and Ed Sabol, the man who started NFL Films.
Announcement day has arrived, we’re less than 12 hours from knowing who has made the cut. I’m not sure if we’ll find out which of the 15 finalists make the cut to 10 in advance of the 5:30 announcement show or not, but hopefully you’ll check back with us here for more discussion around this year’s class.
And, of course, our Class of 2013 predictions, which we promise will be posted a lot sooner than November this time around.
Below are the final 2012 hall of fame class predictions that we’ve been able to scrape from the comments–let me know (tony(at)zoneblitz.com or in the comments section) if you’d like to be added to the list…
| Zoneblitz | Martin | Dawson | Roaf | Reed | Parcells | Stanfel | Butler |
| Billy | Martin | Dawson | Carter | Reed | Haley | Stanfel | Butler |
| Brad | Martin | Dawson | Roaf | Reed | Kennedy | Stanfel | Butler |
| Paul | Martin | Dawson | Roaf | Reed | Kennedy | Stanfel | Butler |
| BSLO | Martin | Dawson | Parcells | Reed | Kennedy | Stanfel | Butler |
| Robert Ewing | Martin | Doleman | Roaf | Reed | Haley | Butler | |
| Chris | Martin | Dawson | Doleman | Reed | Kennedy | Stanfel | Butler |
| boknows34 | Martin | Dawson | Roaf | Reed | Kennedy | Stanfel | Butler |
We’re getting close to learning who the 2012 inductees will be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this August. Much of the discussion on one of our other Hall of Fame posts revolves around which of the three wide receiver finalists — or whether any of them — will get chosen for the honor this season.
Four-time finalist Andre Reed seems to have gained the most momentum, based on his near miss last season. Three-time finalist Cris Carter and one-time finalist Tim Brown are the other two wideouts in the mix for this year’s honor.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame Website did a comparison of these three players and how they fared up against the other 21 wideouts already enshrined in Canton, Ohio. But I wanted to do some analysis of my own.
Let me start with this. All three of these guys had great careers and they definitely are strong candidates, at least in the eyes of Zoneblitz. They all would be in the top five in receiving yards, touchdowns and receptions among receivers already in the Hall. Even as we move into a heavy passing era, Reed, Carter and Brown all continue to match up strongly with the other candidates they’ll be compared with in the near future.
But as the competition gets stronger in the years ahead, as guys like Marvin Harrison, Randy Moss, Torry Holt, Terrell Owens and a host of others retire, it’s going to be more and more challenging for the current group of finalists to get in. That makes the voting over the next couple years that much more important. And frankly, after doing some analysis, I think the current wide receiver finalists might be gaining momentum in the wrong order.
This could be turning into a pretty good year for big-name retirements. There’s Jason Taylor for sure. Seems LaDainian Tomlinson is considering hanging it up. And if reports from around the Interwebs are true, Steelers wideout Hines Ward is about to say goodbye to the NFL, as well. (EDIT: Or perhaps not …)
Taylor and Tomlinson would seem to be sure thing inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame at this point. But Ward is an interesting case. He’s close — right on the borderline either way. His numbers were very, very good, but was he that good? Or did he benefit from playing in the NFL as the game — and the long-time run-heavy Steelers — transitioned more and more toward the pass? Continue reading
The Pro Football Hall of Fame named its 15 finalists for the Class of 2012, with guard Will Shields and coach Bill Parcells being first time finalists (Parcells was technically a finalist before, when coaches did not have to wait the five years, and is apparently considered a first time candidate again).
Joining Parcells and Shields as finalists from the modern era:
The only two we missed on were Aeneas Williams (who we had as a finalist last year), and DeBartolo, Jr. In their places we had picked coach Bill Cowher (who wasn’t even a semifinalist, presumably due to the belief he will resume coaching) and RB Terrell Davis.
All five of our picks for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2012 are still in the running.
Missing the cut from the 2012 Pro Football Hall of Fame semifinalist list were:
The list of finalists will be narrowed to 10, and then down to five on the Saturday before the Super Bowl, and those five will be voted on individually for inclusion along with Senior Candidates Jack Butler and Dick Stanfel.
Follow up in the comments with your thoughts on the finalists…
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