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Tony Boselli Pro Football Hall of Fame 2022

Pro Football Hall of Fame Boselli Yearbook 2022

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It didn’t take long for Tony Boselli to fall in love with football.

As a quarterback.

“Oh, I thought I was a quarterback,” he recalled of his ninth-grade year in football at Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado. “I played quarterback that year and the first day of training camp the varsity Head Coach, Sam Pagano, moved me to tight end. The next year he moved me to O-Line. He told me later that the only reason he didn’t move me right to O-Line was because he thought I might quit.”

There was no chance of that.

“I did want to be the quarterback,” Boselli added. “But I really didn’t care when they moved me. I just wanted to play football.”

From those decisions by his high school coach and his fourteen-year-old self, a career as one of the best offensive linemen in the history of football was born.

A high school All-American as a senior, Tony chose the University of Southern California over his home state Colorado Buffaloes to study and continue his football career.

For Boselli’s final two years at USC, John Robinson returned for his second stint as the Trojans’ Head Coach. Tony had established himself as a starter and as a dominant player, but Robinson thought he could be better.

“I was hard on Tony,” Robinson admitted, adding he told USC’s offensive line coach Mike Barry to be hard on him as well.

Boselli says that made him a better player and was named the top offensive lineman in the Pac-10 in 1994.

Saying Boselli was “the best college offensive lineman I ever had,” Robinson saw a great professional future for Tony in the NFL.

“I grew up with John Madden,” Robinson said the night Boselli was named as part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s class of 2022. “So, I called him one day after Tony was drafted and said, ‘John, watch for this Boselli kid. He’s the best tackle I’ve ever seen!” ‘You’re crazy,’ John said to me and hung up. About a week later, he called me back and said, ‘About this Boselli guy, you might be right’!”

At Southern Cal, Boselli was an All-American on the football field and a three-time selection to the Pac-10’s All-Academic team.

He earned a degree in finance at USC and was awarded a postgraduate scholarship from the National Football Foundation.

But the NFL was calling.

As an expansion franchise, the Jacksonville Jaguars made Boselli the first pick in the franchise’s history, second overall in the 1995 NFL Draft.

“The cornerstone of the franchise,” is what Jaguars Head Coach and General Manager Tom Coughlin called him at the time.

And he was that.

With Boselli in the lineup, the Jaguars won sixty percent of their games and were a perennial contender, making the AFC Championship game in 1996 and 1999.

Named to the All-Rookie team in 1995 and the All-Decade team of the 1990’s despite playing only half the decade, Boselli was elected to five Pro Bowls and was All-Pro three times.

No easy feat playing in the “Golden Age of Tackles” with fellow Hall of Fame tackles Willie Roaf, Walter Jones, Jonathan Ogden, Orlando Pace and Gary Zimmerman.

“I wore 71 because that’s what Tony wore,” Jones said.

“I’d check my game against Tony’s every week. Even though we weren’t even in the same conference,” Roaf admitted.

From his position at left tackle, Boselli handled fellow Hall of Famers Bruce Smith, Derek Thomas, John Randle, Jason Taylor, and others.

Smith was the league’s Defensive Player of the Year when Boselli neutralized him in the AFC Championship game in Buffalo. Thomas was coming off a six-sack performance the week before against the Raiders when Tony took him on the following Sunday.

“We’re putting Boselli on him and not going to worry about it,” Coughlin said the week leading up to the game.

While it was considered a marquee matchup, Boselli rendered Thomas ineffective for four quarters.

“Boselli beat me down on a Monday night,” Taylor said, recalling Tony waving him to the other end of the field. “An epic beatdown. Surprised it didn’t knock me into retirement.”

Former Seattle and Steelers Offensive Line Coach Kent Stephenson probably watched more “Boselli tape” than anybody in football.

“Since we were in the same conference and the same division, we played similar opponents. I watched him every week. You couldn’t help but watch him perform. He jumped off the film. He could do it all. He was a great, great player.”

“There are certain guys that when the lights go on and when the game is on the line, they have something extra,” he added. “Boselli had that.”

Choosing Mark Brunell, his former quarterback and best friend as his presenter for the Hall of Fame seemed like a natural selection, but Brunell remembers it wasn’t always that smooth.

“We didn’t get along when we first met,” Brunell recalled with a laugh. “I didn’t like him actually.”

“He thought he was the best offensive lineman in training camp as a rookie.”

“Which he was. “

“He thought he was the best player on the team.”

“Which he was.”

“And he thought he was the toughest guy on the team,” Brunell continued through the laughter.

“Which he was.”

Mark and Tony found some common ground through their faith and their families, and their friendship grew and blossomed into what it is today.

A 19-year NFL career with five teams gives Brunell some perspective on talent in the league and he puts Boselli in some rarefied air.

“I wouldn’t say Tony was better than Brett Favre or Reggie White, but those are the guys he’s in the conversation with.”

Boselli dipped his toe into the political arena when his NFL career ended. After years of outstanding philanthropy work in North Florida, he gained a real sense of what children and families in need were looking for. He was encouraged to run for Mayor and gave it serious consideration but decided his best work could be accomplished through his foundation and outside of politics.

A bout with Covid three years ago gave Boselli some new perspective. During his hospital stay, Boselli was quarantined, only staying in contact with his family via text when he had enough energy to grab his phone. He credits the health care workers with his recovery. They were the only people allowed near him, wearing full protective gear.

“They were great,” Tony said with a strong sense of gratitude. “Those doctors and PAs and nurses and techs, everyone, they’re amazing. These people were absolutely amazing. Superstars.”

Boselli and his wife Angi have two sons and three daughters and live in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Tony is in the health care business but stays close to football with a national broadcasting career on Westwood One and locally on the Jaguars radio broadcasts.

Now the “cornerstone”’ of Jaguars history, Boselli says he’s with the Jaguars to stay.

“As long as there is a Jaguars team, I’ll be a part of it.”

Tony Boselli - Pro Football Hall of Fame 2022

What Took So Long

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Although his career on the field was full of skill, technique, power and passion, Tony Boselli’s path to the Pro Football Hall of Fame was a numbers game.

This was the sixth consecutive year Boselli has made the finalists list. The last five years he’s made the first cut to the final ten. In the time I’ve researched the nuances of Boselli’s career for his presentation to the other forty-eight members of the Selection Committee, nobody every says to me “he wasn’t good enough.” It’s only ever “did he play long enough.”

So here are a couple of quick numbers about the length of Tony’s career

Boselli played ninety-seven games. There are 300 players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and nineteen percent played either fewer games or less than one more full season than Boselli. Twenty-three percent of all of the tackles in the Hall played less than a hundred games.

It’s not unprecedented for a player with the length of career like Tony’s to be elected to the Hall of Fame. It’s not even unusual.

In the Hall’s Class of 2017 both Terrell Davis and Kenny Easley were elected. Davis played eighty-six games and Easley ninety-five.

It was after that year that former Times-Union reporter and columnist Vito Stellino, a writer in the Hall of Fame himself, penned an open letter to the Selection Committee suggesting that if Davis and Easley were Hall-worthy even with short career’s, Boselli should earn some consideration. Boselli had been a finalist for the first time that year and Stellino, then an at-large member of the Selection Committee, gave credence to the idea that as the dominant Tackle of his era, Tony’s case had some merit.

Besides the length of his career, other numbers were working against Boselli’s case. In 2018, five of the fifteen finalists, one third of the total, were offensive linemen. Joe Jacoby, Alan Faneca, Steve Hutchinson, Kevin Mawai and Joe Jacoby. All had longer careers than Boselli and only one of them, Jacoby, played tackle. It was clear it would be an uphill battle for Tony to leapfrog those other players, all with strong cases for admittance to the Hall. In addition, Committee rules at the time had the players presented by position and by alphabetical order. That meant Boselli was always first, a distinct disadvantage. Those rules were changed the following year, with players now presented in random order.

Tony’s candidacy also ran up against an odd stretch of other players becoming eligible who were considered ‘first-ballot’ selections. While I don’t think ‘first-ballot’ is a thing for the Pro Football Hall of Fame (unlike baseball) it has become a measuring stick in the last twenty years as the makeup of the committee has gotten younger. In the last five years, half of those elected to the Hall have been first-ballot selections. With only five spots available each year, the numbers didn’t work for Tony.

When the Hall announced a ‘Centennial Class’ for 2020, it appeared Boselli would be a front-runner. But with some momentum as a ‘modern-era’ candidate, the committee put together to select the Centennial Class was looking for players no longer under consideration.

Included in that Centennial Class was Jimbo Covert a tackle for the Chicago Bears. Covert had a similar career to Boselli’s. An All-Decade player, Covert made two All-Pro teams compared to Tony’s three (four unofficially if you count Sports Illustrated’s selections). An perhaps most importantly, Covert played one hundred and eleven games, less than one full season longer than Boselli.

By 2022, Jacoby had moved to the Senior Pool and Faneca, Mawai and Hutchinson had all be elected to the Hall. That left Boselli as the last offensive lineman from that group still on the ballot.

Including Boselli there were six great tackles in his era: Willie Roaf, Jonathan Ogden Orlando Pace, Walter Jones, and Gary Zimmerman.

In the last fifteen years, all have gained entrance to Canton. Hard to believe there are only thirty-one true tackles in the Hall and we’ve put six of them there in recent history.

There were three years where all six of those tackles played together in the NFL. On the All-Pro team for those three years the one constant at tackle was Boselli. The others rotated through the other tackle position.

While researching Tony’s presentation to the Selection Committee, I’ve had a chance to talk to opponents of his era as well as those tackles who played in the same years.

Walter Jones told me “Are you kidding? I wore 71 because of Boselli.”

Willie Roaf said he’d have the video department for the Saints cut up Boselli plays from the previous Sunday and watch them during the week.

“Even though we weren’t even in the same division or even the same conference, I wanted to check my game against his,” he said.

Anthony Munoz considered perhaps the best tackle of all time said of Boselli, “Tony was the best in the era he played. He should be in Canton.”

John Hannah, considered the best guard of all time said of Boselli: “I thought he was the best tackle I’d ever seen play.”

Tony told me that John Randle was the toughest opponent he faced. Randle couldn’t say enough good things about Tony, saying Boselli easily was the best he faced.

“He had the versatility if you combined Gary Zimmerman and Walter Jones,” Randle said.
“Plus, he was just a tough guy.”

Jason Taylor, a first-ballot Hall of Fame defensive end from Miami said it was such a classic beat down Boselli gave him on a Monday night, “If they didn’t turn the lights off, he’d still be kicking my ass. I’m surprised he didn’t beat me all the way to retirement.”

Bruce Smith, whom Boselli handled singlehandedly in the playoffs, after five years of asking said, “He was a stud. He gave me all I could handle. In that era of football, there was none better.”

Tony was on the All-NFL Rookie Team in 1995. The NFL Alumni Association and the NFLPA had an award for the top offensive lineman in the league while Boselli played. He won that award from both organizations in back-to-back years. The only other player to do that was Munoz.

Boselli made five straight Pro Bowls, three straight All-Pro teams and a fourth by Sports Illustrated. The Hall of Fame Selection Committee put him on the All-Decade team of the 90’s even though he only played half the decade.

Well respected Mike Giddings from Pro Scout rated him with five blue seasons, their top rating.

Tony ranks first or second in nearly every quantifiable stat about tackles in the run game, yards per carry to his side. And in the passing game when it comes to sacks allowed.

And he made everybody around him better.

With Boselli at left tackle, the Jaguars had four consecutive winning seasons, went to the playoffs four straight years, and played in two AFC Championship games with him anchoring the offensive line. Head Coach Tom Coughlin, who drafted Boselli, called him “the cornerstone of the franchise.”

The Jaguars won about 60 % of their games with Boselli in the lineup. Without him, well, you know the rest. They’ve won about 25% of their games.

Since tackle is not a quantifiable position with a ton of stats, I talked with Kent Stephenson, the former Seattle, and Steelers OL coach during Boselli’s career. The Jaguars and the Steelers were in the AFC Central when Tony played so they faced each other twice a year. Stephenson said he watched more tape of Boselli than anybody, studying the common opponents every week.

“I have two of my boys in the Hall, Faneca and Dawson, “Stephenson told me. “Tony was in their class He was a great, great player. Did everything well and did it with ease”

“Since we were in the same conference, we played similar opponents I saw him every week,” he added. “You couldn’t help watch him perform, he jumped off the film. He could do it all.”

“There are certain guys that when the lights go on and when the game is on the line, they have something extra. Faneca had that, Dawson had that. Boselli was the same way. They have a little bit of a competitive edge that shows up during competition.”

He played a premium position at left tackle. He handled players like Bruce Smith and Derek Thomas one-on-one. Boselli was athletic, fierce, and could run block or pass protect among the best.

He’s the consensus best tackle of his era by coaches, media, and his peers, and he remains the best player ever to wear a Jaguars uniform. So forever, Tony Boselli will be the first Jaguar to be selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Pro Football Hall of Fame

Hall of Fame 2021 Boselli

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This week the Pro Football Hall of Fame will reveal the Class of 2021. They’re hoping to keep it a secret until the NFL Honors show on Saturday night before the Super Bowl but with Hall President David Baker knocking on doors this week giving those selected the good news and making phone calls to those who aren’t in this year’s class, word might leak out.

Ten days ago, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee met on a Zoom call to discuss and vote on this year’s class. This was my twenty-eight year on the committee representing Jacksonville, and the first time we’ve ever met virtually. Usually it’s a day-long meeting the Saturday before the Super Bowl in the host city. This year the call lasted eight hours and forty-seven minutes.

I don’t know who’s in this year’s class as the PFHOF changed the voting procedure to keep the final five selected a secret. By now you’re probably familiar with how it goes.

From the thousands of players who put on an NFL uniform, the hundred or so who are eligible or nominated for the Hall in any given year are culled down in a Selection Committee vote by mail to twenty-five semi-finalists. Those twenty-five are cut again, by vote, to fifteen finalists. The finalists make “the room” where, in a live meeting, the Selection Committee discusses the merits of their career. There’s then a vote to ten, and then down to five. The final five then have to survive an up or down vote again by the full committee. Those receiving eighty percent ‘yes’ votes are selected to the Hall of Fame. This year they didn’t tell us who the final five were. We just voted up or down a second time on the final ten. As it sounds, it’s an arduous process. Maybe the toughest Hall of Fame in all of sports.

There were fifteen ‘Modern Era’ finalists to discuss, players whose career ended less than twenty-five years ago. This year we also talked about a senior candidate, receiver Drew Pearson, a Contributor, scout Bill Nunn from the Steelers and a coach, Tom Flores. They’re in their own separate categories and it would be a surprise if any of those three were denied entrance into the Hall. They also needed eighty percent of an up or down vote from the Selection Committee.

The fifteen Modern Era finalists are vying for only five spots, which makes it very difficult to gain entrance and I can tell you it’s tough on the selectors. Once you get into the room, a player has about an eighty-eight percent chance of eventually getting into the Hall. But deciding who’s essentially not getting in that year is daunting. All are qualified or they wouldn’t have made it through the morass of eligible players and into the final fifteen. I’ll find out along with everybody else who was denied entrance to the Hall this year. And again, it won’t be a good feeling.

Making the decision about which players move forward is a multi-faceted process. If it was just about statistics, you could just send out a spreadsheet and put in the top five. But a player has to have had an impact in his era that exceeds all others at his position. As one selector famously put it, “Could you write the history of the NFL in his era and not include him?”

Which players are on the finalists’ ballot in any given year also has an impact. How many ‘first time eligible’ players are listed on the ballot? And were they good enough to gain entrance in their first year of eligibility?

That ‘first ballot’ moniker has become a thing recently. I’m in the minority I’m sure but I don’t think first ballot is even a thing in the PFHOF. Baseball? Yes. The voting procedure is totally different. Football? No. Nobody ever asks how many years it took to get in. The first ballot idea in football has been pressed by sports networks and social media and has put pressure on the committee to acquiesce. That’s not a secret.

In the past decade, the Selection Committee has admitted forty-per cent of all first ballot nominees. Far more than any other ten year stretch in the history of the Hall since the start of the Modern Era in 1970.

Is Jerry Rice’s gold jacket any shinier than Lynn Swann’s? It is not. Rice was elected in his first year of eligibility, Swann in his fourteenth. I think first ballot players are when the presenter stands up and says, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Joe Montana.” Or “Ladies and Gentlemen, Don Shula.” And sits down. It’s no secret that Peyton Manning is getting in this year in his first year of eligibility. His presentation took twelve seconds. And Charles Woodson looks like a first ballot selectee this year as well.

First-year finalist Calvin Johnson said publicly that if he wasn’t selected in his first year he’d be “insulted.” Nine years in the league, a great nickname in ‘Megatron’, Johnson ended his career voluntarily, citing the wear and tear on his body. I’ve got news for you, anybody with a near ten-year career in the NFL has plenty of wear and tear on his body.

Is Johnson worthy of the Hall of Fame? Absolutely. Does he have to be a first ballot guy? Not really. It’s one of those factors that has to go into the Selectors decision making. If you add Johnson to Manning and Woodson as ‘first ballot’ guys this year that leaves twelve finalists for two spots. If you keep doing that, year after year, deserving players are left behind.

John Lynch was a finalist this year for the eighth time. Alan Faneca was in the final fifteen for the sixth straight year. And the Jaguars Tony Boselli has been ‘in the room’ for five years.

Nobody doubts the greatness of those players or their Hall of Fame credentials but with the committee getting younger and relying more and more on statistics instead of the ‘eye test,’ and putting first-timers in at a record pace, those three are good examples of what can happen.

As the Jacksonville representative it’s been my job for the past five years to present Tony Boselli’s case for induction. Each year the presentation has to be different, building on what the committee already knows about his career. When Tony was first eligible, there were five offensive linemen on the final ballot and they were all presented, in alphabetical order. That put Boselli, starting with a ‘B’ at a disadvantage by always going first. By the time we got through the other four, his career impact was undeservedly diluted. Luckily, the Hall has changed the procedure, randomly pulling players names out of a hat for the order of presentation.

And although Boselli is listed as an Offensive Lineman, he’s a tackle and the only tackle on this year’s ballot. Tackles play a high value position. They’re very different than guards or centers. We don’t consider defensive backs in one lump, a nod to how different safeties and cornerbacks are.

You can’t compare what Boselli did as a player with Faneca’s game. Both were dominant at their position in their era and both are worthy of Hall of Fame status. But what they were asked to do was very different. Faneca was pulling and blocking and handling defensive tackles while Boselli was charged with handling Hall of Famers like Bruce Smith and Derrick Thomas. By himself. Both great, both very different.

The perceived brevity of Boselli’s career has been the only knock on his candidacy for the Hall. Tony played ninety-seven games through seven seasons. Swann, Dwight Stephenson, Jimbo Covert and a host of other members of the Hall had comparable career year numbers. Even an iconic NFL player like Paul Hornung only played one hundred and four regular season games.

Thirteen percent of all players in the Hall played less than one hundred games. Twenty five percent of all Tackles in the Hall played less than a hundred games. Gayle Sayers was always the outlier as a member of the Hall with a short career. Sayers only played sixty-six games in the NFL before a knee injury ended his playing ability. But his greatness wasn’t denied, and he was elected to the Hall in 1977 at thirty-four years old, still the youngest player ever inducted.

Recently, the Selection Committee put Terrell Davis and Kenny Easley in the Hall. Davis played seventy-eight games and Easley eighty-nine. So, length of career isn’t a reason to keep Tony out.

“It’s hard to deny somebody who played nearly a hundred games and is considered one of the top two or three to ever play his position,” one non-Selection Committee scribe said to me last week. There’s really not much debate about the quality of Boselli’s play.

Will Boselli gain entrance to the Hall this year? I really don’t know. It’s a numbers game for Tony, again. Of those five offensive linemen who were on the ballot when he first was a finalist five years ago, two, Kevin Mawae and Steve Hutchinson are in the Hall. Joe Jacoby is in the senior pool. Tony and Faneca remain as finalists. Will they grab one of the two or three available spots for this year? And what about Lynch. Jacksonville’s native son LeRoy Butler has already been told he didn’t make it this year.

You could say Tony played in the ‘Golden Age of Tackles’ in the NFL. Willie Roaf, Jonathan Ogden, Orlando Pace, Walter Jones and Gary Zimmerman were all contemporaries of Boselli. All are in the Hall. And all, in one way or another, have told me Boselli was the best of the bunch. Walter Jones said he wore 71 because Boselli wore 71. Willie Roaf said he checked his game against Boselli’s every week. Even though they weren’t even in the same conference.

I honestly don’t know but I’d call Tony’s chances 50-50 based on the numbers. If the committee thinks Calvin Johnson is a first ballot guy that cuts down the numbers and the chances. We did talk about Tony for over thirty-one minutes last week, third longest of all the candidates.

Based on the current criteria, I believe Boselli is a Hall of Famer. Without statistics, although there are now some metrics for offensive lineman, he’s subject to the eye test. And some of the committee never saw him play. The Jaguars sent out video clips this year to committee members showing Tony’s dominance. And it was a good reminder of just how dominant he was.

They say being selected to the Hall of Fame is a life changing experience. I hope it happens soon for Boselli and I hope it’ll be worth the wait.

Pro Football Hall of Fame 2020

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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.