Boselli’s Chance

/in /by

This coming Saturday in Miami, former Jaguars Tackle Tony Boselli and Packers safety LeRoy Butler are among the 15 finalists for the remaining five spots in the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s “Centennial Class.” Recognizing the NFL’s 100th anniversary and the year 2020, the Hall expanded this year’s class to include 10 seniors, two coaches, three contributors and five modern-era candidates. Those modern-era candidates are the finalists we’ll talk about this Saturday, players whose careers ended less than twenty-five years ago.

A “Blue Ribbon” Committee was appointed to select the first fifteen members of the Centennial Class. The regular Selection Committee will discuss the final fifteen Saturday and whittle that group down to the final five for enshrinement in Canton with a little twist on the rules from previous years.

Normally the Selection Committee talks about players and coaches and the final five have to endure an up or down vote. Each has to get 80% of the Selection Committee’s endorsement to gain entrance into the Hall. This year the Committee will only talk about players and there will be no up or down vote. The final five will be part of the class.

It’s the fourth consecutive year Boselli has made the finalists list. It’s the first time Butler has made it “in the room.” Making it “in the room” gives a player about an 88% chance of eventually making it to the Hall.

Because it’s his fourth year in the final fifteen, Boselli has a better chance this year than Butler but I think both deserve enshrinement in Canton. I’ll give support to LeRoy’s candidacy during the meeting. He’s a four-time All-Pro and four times was elected to the Pro Bowl. He played on a Super Bowl championship team. He was on the NFL’s All-Decade team of the ‘90’s. He has a strong case for the Hall.

But it’s my job as the Jacksonville representative to present Tony’s case to the other forty-seven selectors. The Green Bay rep will present LeRoy’s case.

The Selection Committee is a group of reporters and two Hall of Fame members who are serious-minded, smart, experienced and well prepared. They’re not swayed by flowery rhetoric or great oratory skills. They’re interested in facts they might not have uncovered. They want to hear what the candidate’s contemporaries say about his qualifications, his teammates and opponents, players and coaches.

Boselli had been eligible for the Hall for eleven years before he became a finalist. Give credit to my colleague Vito Stellino, a Hall of Fame writer himself and an at-large member of the Selection Committee for jump-starting Tony’s candidacy. His off-season reminder to Committee members that Boselli’s career exceeded the length of some recent inductee’s gave Tony’s case an early push.

There’s really not much debate about the quality of Boselli’s play. Nobody disputes that at the peak of his performance, he was among the best, maybe in the top two of those who ever played tackle in the NFL. (The consensus is Anthony Munoz is the best tackle ever. Even Boselli thinks so.)

Players from Tony’s era who have made it to Canton all believe in his qualifications.

Munoz said he thinks Boselli “is one of the best offensive tackles I have observed.”

“He had the versatility of Gary Zimmerman and Walter Jones,” said John Randle, who Boselli calls his toughest opponent. “He was patient, that’s what makes the great ones I don’t see that much these days. Tony had great feet, he never got crossed over.”

Jason Taylor suffered a beat down in a nationally televised game and said recently, “ Tony Boselli wore me out! In fact, if they didn’t turn off the lights, he would still be kicking my a**. He belongs in that (Hall of Fame) box.”

Even Bruce Smith, previously reluctant to talk about his matchups with Boselli, endorsed him this week. “He was a stud. He gave me all I could handle. In that era of football, there was none better.”

Walter Jones was a few years older than Boselli but admitted he looked at Tony’s game tape each week to compare his own game.. You could call the era that included Jones and Boselli the “Golden Age of Tackles.” Orlando Pace, Jonathan Ogden and Willie Roaf were all in that time frame and all are in the Hall. All also admit Boselli might have been the best of the lot.

John Hannah, considered the best guard to ever play the game said, “When I watched Tony Boselli play I thought he was the best offensive tackle I ever saw.”

Boselli ranks either first or second among the tackles of his era when it comes to sacks per game, rushing yards to his side and most other quantifiable statistics. He was named All-Pro four times by different organizations and was five times selected to the Pro Bowl. He’s a member of the NFL’s All-Decade team of the’90’s despite playing only half of the decade.

So the only question about Tony is the length of his career. Seven years. Ninety-seven games including six playoff contests.

There are numerous examples of players in the Hall of Fame who played less than ten years in the league.

Well respected NFL Historian and editor of Pro Football Journal John Turney recently named his “All-
Short Career” team perhaps in reaction to the recent early retirements of Luke Kuechly (8 years), Rob Grokowski, (9 years) Calvin Johnson (9 years) and Andrew Luck (6 years).

Boselli was an all-first team tackle on offense. The other was Jimbo Covert of the Bears, recently named to the Hall by the Blue Ribbon Committee. Covert played eight seasons and 111 games. Less than a full season more than Tony.

Names you might recognize also on that “Short Career” offensive team: Jim Brown, Gale Sayers, Lynn Swann, Kellen Winslow, Earl Campbell, Terrell Davis and Dwight Stephenson, all in the Hall of Fame among others. Davis gained enshrinement in 2017 and played but 78 games in the NFL.

If you like numbers, here are some that might surprise you:

Twenty-five percent of the tackles in the Hall played less than 100 games. Thirteen percent of all players in the Hall played less than 100 games.

Pro football reference has a stat called “games as primary starter” at their position. A full 35% of the hall, 97 of the 279 players in the Hall of Fame were the “primary starter” at their position for ten years or less.

The same research lists 14 of the 30 tackles in the Hall of Famer, nearly half as the “primary starter” for their teams for ten years or less. Why?

There’s been an ebb and flow in the length of careers over the NFL’s first century. Until about 1960 it wasn’t unusual for a player’s career to be less than ten years.

There was not the same medical skill and procedures as now and certainly not the money. Guys went on to other careers. Duke Slater, a member of the Centennial Class, played nine years and ninety games before retiring at age 32. At the time he was an attorney and a judge in Chicago. It wasn’t until the very late 50’s and 60’s that careers in the NFL started to expand. Better medical attention, more money in the game. Now the trend could be shorter careers. The toll on guys bodies with a 12 month commitment, the amount of money now in the game is giving them an opportunity and for some an incentive to retire early.

So perhaps the Selection Committee will recalibrate it’s thought process when it comes to length of careers. Will they deny Kuechly, Gronkowski or Johnson entrance to the Hall because they chose to end their careers when it appeared they could still play? I would hope not. A less than ten-year career will be more the norm and not the exception in the future.

It’s still an uphill battle for Boselli with fellow offensive linemen Alan Faneca and Steve Hutchinson also as finalists again this year. John Lynch is a finalist for the seventh time.
Eight of the fifteen to be discussed in the room are finalists for the first time. Troy Polamalu is considered the only favorite to gain entrance this year.

While I think Tony has a strong case for the Hall, especially in light of the precedents set by the selection in recent years of players with short careers, I can tell you that in my twenty-five years on the Committee, in that room on that Saturday, anything can happen.

Pro Football Hall of Fame 2020

/in /by

In my 25 years as the Jacksonville representative on the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee the biggest frustration has been the candidates I’ve had to leave out. Each year, especially when the voting gets down to the final ten, me and the rest of the Selection Committee Members cross off five candidates who are Hall of Fame worthy.

This year the Hall of Fame is planning to induct 20 new members to celebrate the 2020 “Centennial Class.” It’s been a little confusing for fans who are used to the Hall announcing their class on the Saturday before the Super Bowl. That’s normally restricted to five Modern Era selections and three more, a combination of Seniors and Contributors.

A “Blue Ribbon” committee was chosen this year to select fifteen new members divided among ten Seniors, two coaches and three contributors.

“This was the most thorough vetting of candidates in the Hall’s history and it needed to be,” said my fellow Hall of Fame Selector Rick Gosselin. “Our charge was to scour 100 years of professional football and find the most deserving candidates who have slipped through the cracks,”

Gosselin, a respected NFL reporter and football historian was one of the twenty-five people on the Blue Ribbon Committee. Thirteen of those are on the Hall of Fame Selection Committee. Bill Belichick and Hall of Famers John Madden, Gil Brandt, Ron Wolf and Bill Polian were also part of the Blue Ribbon process.

Jacksonville’s Harold Carmichael is on the list of Seniors selected by the Blue Ribbon committee for enshrinement in Canton. His career ended in 1984 so while he was eligible as a Modern Era Candidate for my first 15 years on the Committee, he never made it as a finalist. I, and many other Selection Committee members were baffled by his exclusion.

To try and alleviate a backlog of deserving candidates, the Hall has adjusted the process slightly in the last few years. They’ve added new categories and increased the size of the class trying to keep a player, coach or contributor from “slipping through the cracks.”

Everybody, players, coaches and contributors were in the complete process competing for just five spots in the past. Of the more than one hundred eligible and nominated people on the first ballot each year, getting it down to five meant I left guys I thought were Hall of Famers off my ballot. There just wasn’t enough space.

Quarterbacks and television producers competing against each other with personnel evaluators and head coaches on the same ballot. They’ve given Contributors their own category, alternating with Seniors between two and one eligible candidates each year. Players and coaches are still in the same pool, all competing for five spots.

From the more than a hundred, down to the 25 semi-finalists, that list was pared down to 15 by remote voted by the members (now 48) of the Selection Committee. Those fifteen are then brought in “the room” the Saturday before the Super Bowl for the Selection Committee meeting. We discuss each candidate in detail. If it sounds like a long process, it is.

When I first started on the Committee the meeting started at 7AM, they served a continental breakfast and the announcement was at noon. Now the meeting starts at seven, and there’s a TV show at 8pm. They also serve two full meals.

Gosselin’s charge to “scour the first 100 years of pro football” to find deserving candidates was the mission and they accomplished it. Carmichael was among the ten Seniors selected for induction into Canton. His qualifications have always been there and on this Blue Ribbon committee he also passed the “eye test.”

The “eye test” used to be a bigger factor in the Hall selection process. It’s still part of it but the amount of information available means numbers play a bigger role.

Carmichael is certainly deserving and it was a surprise that he was selected over Drew Pearson. The Raines grad was a second-team selection on the NFL’s All-Decade team of the 1970’s. Pearson was on the first-team.

Over last weekend the Hall decided to publicize the Centennial Class by announcing Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson as new members headed to Canton this year. Somewhat surprising, Tom Flores and Don Coryell, both finalists in the past in the regular selection process were passed over. Johnson’s career was short in Dallas and Miami but he did win two Super Bowls. Flores resume is long including Super Bowl victories. I think Coryell deserves a place in Canton because he changed the game with his “Air Coryell” despite his lack of post-season success.

Selecting Alex Karras might have been controversial in the past because of his suspension in 1963 for his involvement in gambling. Paul Hornung was also suspended that year for the same thing but was elected to the Hall in 1986, his fifteenth year of eligibility. Karras is now in as a part of the Hall thirty-four years later. The difference? Hornung was on Lombardi’s Packers who won championships: Karras played in Detroit where they didn’t win any.

One surprise was the inclusion of former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. Tagliabue was one of three contributors elected despite making it as a finalist four times and not being selected. Discussions about Tagliabue have been long and heated among the Selection Committee. You could call him a polarizing figure among the reporters and players in that room. He is the only contributor candidate ever brought to the full committee who wasn’t voted in since the category was added in 2014.

The induction in Canton this August could have a distinct Jacksonville flair as Leroy Butler and Tony Boselli are both finalists In Miami. We’ll talk about their chances of joining Carmichael in the Hall of Fame next week.

Tiger Vs. Tiger Isn’t The Only Similarity

/in /by

If you’ve never been to Clemson, you’re not alone. It’s a destination. You’re not going to accidentally end up in Clemson. In the northwest corner of South Carolina, Clemson is in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and on the shores of Lake Hartwell.

While the university has always been known as “Clemson.” The town was originally called “Calhoun” until the 1940’s when the name was changed to Clemson. The town is pretty much only there because of the school and Princeton Review named it the top place in their “town and gown” ratings where they rank the relationship between the school and the town.

They once shot a Burt Lancaster movie in Clemson, the producer saying they were looking for a place “where nothing was going on.”

There’s no lack of support for Clemson Tiger sports and the football team though. The university is committed to having a nationally competitive program. And the fans do their part. Their football program is bolstered by the “ITPAY” fundraising organization founded in 1934 specifically to raise money to keep the team competitive. Originally it stood for, “I Pay Ten A Year.” Now IPTAY is just the moniker: it has raised over $360 million in the last six years.

The private fundraising group keeps them competitive with schools from the Big 10 and the SEC that bring in nearly $150 million a year from television rights, bowl revenue, ticket sales and student fees as well as private donations.

“If not for IPTAY,” one donor said, “We’d be Wake Forest or Duke.” And that means no football championships.

The Tiger’s Reeves Football Complex is a $55 million, 142,500 square foot facility with the standard football training spaces and equipment but also has a barber shop, a bowling alley, a nap room, outdoor basketball court and a miniature golf course.

LSU is equally passionate about sports and their football team. This year they unveiled a $28 million renovation to their “Football Operations” facility.

They’ve been playing football there since 1893. They’ve won 16 conference championships. They crank out All-Americans and NFL players on a regular basis. They’ve won three National Championships. And, maybe by coincidence, after their first national title was claimed in 1958 (awarded after the regular season), they went on to beat Clemson in the 1959 Sugar Bowl.

In Baton Rouge they made nearly $87 million just on football in 2018 with a nine-win season. Over $22 million of that was from donations. They spent over $34 million running the Tigers football program that year. Their coaches made $14.3 million of that. They have one of the few college baseball teams that turn a profit.

Both schools call their teams the Tigers. Both football teams play in a stadium nicknamed “Death Valley.” Both of their coaches are from the South. Dabo Swinney is from Alabama, played at Alabama, coached at Alabama and got his MBA from Alabama. He’s the highest paid college coach in the nation at $9.3 million a year. Ed Orgeron is from Louisiana, started his football career at LSU. He’s been at a myriad of schools, including coaching at Arkansas, Miami, USC, Tennessee and the NFL’s New Orleans Saints. He landed his first head-coaching job at Ole Miss. He’s making about $4 million a year.

And besides their southern roots, the similarities don’t end there. Both aren’t afraid to make a change, take chances and live with the consequences.

Much has been said about Orgeron hiring Joe Brady to revamp the LSU offense and build a passing game around quarterback Joe Burrow. That decision propelled Burrow to the Heisman Trophy and LSU to an undefeated record. It’s a big leap for a coach to scrap what he was doing, what he was comfortable with and take things in a whole different direction. The last time anybody paid attention to the LSU passing game, Bert Jones was the quarterback. They’ve had Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham, Jr. and D.J. Chark at wide receiver but never produced like the Tigers did this year with Burrow.

With much less fanfare last year, Swinney was equally bold with his quarterback. Deshaun Watson helped Clemson win the national championship and his backup, Kelly Bryant, was the natural successor for the Tigers. And he played great when he got his chance, compiling a 12-2 record in his first year as a starter, won the ACC Championship and put Clemson in the college football playoffs. But four games into Bryant’s second season, still undefeated, Swinney made a change to Trevor Lawrence, a true freshman. Sure Lawrence might have been the number one recruit in the nation but still, he was a freshman! Swinney’s instinct was right as Lawrence led the Tigers to an undefeated season and the National Championship. Swinney’s move allowed Bryant to transfer and play his final year at Missouri. But it also left Clemson without a real backup at quarterback.

“My job is to make decisions that put the team in the best possible path to win,” he said last year of his quarterback move, “and after four games he was the best player.”

So boldness won’t be an issue for either team Monday night. Burrow with throw it, and run it for LSU’s Tigers. Lawrence will throw it and run it for Clemson’s Tigers. Both coaches will reach into their bag of tricks, probably more than once, to change the momentum of the game.

When they square off for the National Championship Monday night, both teams will have played one game in the last five weeks. Both won their conference championship games on December 7th, and played in the National Semi-Finals on December 28th. It’s a one-year anomaly according to the College Football Playoff Committee. There were some quirks in the schedule and venues already booked in New Orleans that pushed the game back a week. Next year, the semifinals will be on January 1st and the title game played on the 11th in Miami.

While LSU is a favorite in this game, Clemson is vying to win their third national championship in four years. That’s dynasty kind of stuff that doesn’t normally fit in the ACC but Clemson is not your normal ACC school.

Writing this column got me pretty fired up to watch the game, and after all of the talk about quarterbacks, it’ll probably be defense that decides the outcome. As good as Clemson’s defense was last year, that’s where I think LSU’s is in 2020. Many of you know that I attended Clemson and played football there as a freshman. I could say something silly like, “I’ll take the Tigers,” but it’s the Baton Rouge version that will come out on top Monday night in a lower scoring game than you might think.

Marrone, Caldwell Last Chance

/in /by

There’s a lot we don’t know about Shad Khan. His ownership of the Jaguars is different than Wayne Weaver’s. It’s different than a lot of other NFL owners as well. He doesn’t live in town so he’s not part of the day-to-day operations. As one of the businesses in his portfolio the Jaguars have their own operating management, and when he needs to get involved, he does.

There is one thing we do know about Shad Khan: He’s not stupid.

If you spend any time around Shad you see that he’s a good listener. He believes in people’s expertise. He gives the people around him the tools to be successful. And he has high expectations for that success.

“We would go into meetings at the end of the year with ten ideas of things we’d need to make things successful going forward,” one Jaguars manager told me. “We’d expect to get three or four. Shad would sit there during the meeting and listen, and if you made your case, he’d give you all ten.”

But there was a catch.

“When he’d get to the door,” the manager recalled, “He’d look back and ask ‘Got what you need?’ Then he’d say, ‘Good, I expect some results.’ He didn’t want to hear any excuses.”

Khan’s thing is business. He likes the whole process of finding a business that’s undervalued, figuring out how to get it going and making it work. And he likes to win.

There are a lot of people angry or at best perplexed about his decision to keep Doug Marrone and Dave Caldwell running his football team. They’re track record isn’t great save for one year, 2017. The Jaguars winning percentage in the last decade, with the team mostly owned by Khan, is second-to-last in the league.

Which is why national pundits called Khan’s move to keep Marrone and Caldwell a “head-scratcher.” Or worse. One said Khan was too close to the situation to see what the problems are. That he was looking for the “comfortable” decision to make.

“He did what he always does. Status quo. All good. Nothing to see here. Just another occasionally sternly-worded press release,” is how he described Khan’s decision-making process.

We all know it’s become its own sport on a national level to bash Jacksonville and the Jaguars. We’re an outpost to those writers who never go anywhere other than from the airport to the Hyatt to the stadium and back. If that’s all you did in most NFL cities you wouldn’t think much of them either. But that’s a whole different story.

I’ve had friends and fans agree that they have to “blow the whole thing up” but when I ask “in favor of what?” I usually get a blank stare. And that’s what I think Khan was facing.

The trend of young 30-something coaches taking over franchises has cooled a bit with fewer “hot” candidates out there. Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is a perennial name on the coaching carousel but after his short stint in Denver and jilting the Colts, other owners are a bit wary. And the question whether its McDaniels or the Brady/Belichick combination still remains.

So short of luring Belichick away for a challenge and proof that it’s not all about the quarterback, Khan could have looked at Baltimore’s offensive coordinator Greg Roman (Caldwell’s roommate at John Carroll. Also McDaniels alma mater) or Robert Saleh, the ‘Niners defensive coordinator and former linebacker coach here in Jacksonville. Neither has head coaching experience.

You could say he opted for the “status quo” but I’m looking at the other side of the equation.

These days in the NFL it’s the coaches who bring along their own general managers, not the other way around. So Shad had to make a decision on his coach first. In his meetings with Marrone, Khan was convinced that Doug was encumbered by Tom Coughlin despite their close relationship. Shad had already made the decision to move on from Coughlin as the football czar weeks before he fired him.
It was Coughlin who set a tense tone on the team, attending practices but without the daily contact with players he didn’t have any positive impact on their performance. It seems the only contact Coughlin had with players was when they found a letter in their locker telling them how much they’d been fined. Or whatever he said to Jalen Ramsey after week two this year.

Marrone convinced Khan he can change the culture overnight, and there was some evidence of that in how the team reacted after Coughlin’s firing. Especially last Sunday coming from eleven points down to bet the Colts.

“I have a clear vision of the type of communication that I want with our players from different heads of the organization,” Marrone said on Tuesday when I asked him what specifically he told Khan that would make him a better coach for this team. “I think that we can do a better job there creating a better environment.”

Without throwing Coughlin directly under the bus, Marrone let it be known that things would be different with him calling the shots.

And Khan believed him.

Doug would be easy to play for. Do your job, no problem. Step out of line or don’t perform and he’ll let you know right away. No mystery there.

Retaining Caldwell on the surface seems odd but it had to do with Marrone’s new role having some input in personnel decisions. Caldwell’s record acquiring players, even when he was making the calls on his own, is spotty. But not that different than most organizations. It’s the high profile, Blake Bortles pick that most critics can’t get past.

Marrone was quick to point out in the last two years that he didn’t have anything to do with picking players while Coughlin was there. “You’d have to talk with them,” was his answer when asked about personnel decisions. Now, with he and Caldwell on equal footing in the organization, he believes he can help make it work.

Marrone has a more global view of the whole organization than people outside the buillding would realize. He’s interested in getting everyone involved.

“It comes from everywhere,” he said when asked about change. “It comes from all the support staff in the building, to the way we’re handling the players, to the way we’re acquiring them, to the way we’re coaching them, to everything.”

And then he was very specific about how things will work going forward. He’ll decide as the head coach what kind of football team they’ll be and have input about the players who fit into that mold.

“We are talking about taking our coaching staff with our scouting staff and really putting it in a true, true partnership where we are meeting and talking and doing that and coming to decisions,” he explained. “My experience with that has been that probably 97 percent of the time, you are going to come up with a decision that is best for your organization.”

Those decisions for 2020 will be critical. Marrone’s decisions about his coaching staff, beginning next Monday will be critical. Everybody knows they have a quarterback issue looming. The offensive line needs to play better, probably with some new personnel. They need Marcel Dareus back on the defensive line and better linebacker play. And their wide receivers need to be better and more consistently open.

If that sounds like a lot, it is. But it’s not that unusual for a team in the NFL to turn it around.

This is the one chance these guys are going to get.