Yesterday the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced it's class of 2009 inductees. It is a strong class that includes such luminaries as Bruce Smith, Derrick Thomas and Bob Hayes, among others. What this group does not have, however, is a player who spent either all or a fairly significant part of his playing career in D.C. Outside of Smith, no one in this new class so much as played one single snap for the Burgundy and Gold.
Once again, no Hogs made the final list.
Once again, Joey T., Gary Clark and Ken Harvey were deemed unworthy.
For one more year, at least, Mssrs. Grimm, Jacoby, Lachey, May, Theismann, Clark and Harvey are on the outside looking in. For one more year each of these worthy candidates must wait a little longer in hopes of making it into the NFL'a most exclusive fraternity. For one more year these former Redskins must look in their mirrors and ask the question, "was it all enough? Did I do enough?"
Nevermind their combined fourteen Super Bowl rings. Put aside their 21 overall Pro Bowl selections. Throw out their ten total 1st Team All-Pro nominations. Completely discount their eighty cumulative seasons of playing the most physically arduous sport at very high levels in the toughest league there is.
Take away all those accolades, throw them all out the window...and each one of those men deserves a place amongst their legendary peers anyway. Period. No ifs, ands or buts.
In a perfect world, anyway.
I'm not blind; as loyal as I am to all current and former Redskins players, alive or dead, I still realize that some of those names are more deserving of a bust than others. In all honesty, a couple of them should consider themselves fortunate to have even made a HOF ballot, much less make the Hall itself. And two in particular, former linemates Grimm and Jacoby, should by all rights, by anyone's criteria, have already been voted in.
That those two original Hogs are deserving is not the question.
Whether they ever receive their due is.
Sadly, if they haven't by now they most likely will not. Every year they are left out, every year more players become eligible, lessens their chances that much more. The farther we get from their glory days on the field, the less great they seem to the voters they must depend on. In a world full of injustices and unnecessary hardships this sits way, way down on the list of That Which Should Not Be...but it is a travesty nonetheless.
Grimm, drafted in the 3rd round in 1981, played center at Pitt, but in his rookie training camp was moved to left guard, where he immediately became a powerful fixture. He, along with Jacoby and fellow linemates May, George Starke and Jeff Bostic, became known as The Hogs, and rapidly cemented their reputation as one of if not the finest offensive line in the entire NFL. In a career that spanned 11 years and 140 games, Big Russ started five NFC Championship Games, four Super Bowls (winning 3), appeared in 4 consecutive Pro Bowls, and was named 1st team All-Pro four times. A punishing blocker, he was named to the all-80's team as one of the best players of that decade. Most important, perhaps, he came to be known as the Redskins' answer to the Cowboys and Randy White; in his prime he more than held his own against our hated rivals vaunted defense, led by their most intimidating player.
Jacoby wasn't even drafted -- by any team -- coming out of Louisville the same year, 1981. He was signed to a free agent contract by the Redskins and in no time at all had become their starting left tackle. He would hold that position for the next 13 years and 170 games, during which time he started 19 playoff games, tied for 21st all-time. He too was named to four consecutive Pro Bowls, and named 1st team All-Pro four straight seasons. As with Grimm, he was named to the NFL's all-80's team, and was named one of the 70 Greatest Redskins after retiring. He was one of the lynch pins of a dominating line that paved the way for a series of 'Skins running backs, from John Riggins to Timmy Smith through Kelvin Bryant to Earnest Byner, one of the key components of the virtually unstoppable ground game that symbolized the Gibbs' Super Bowl-winning juggernauts of that era.
Both of these men had long, excellent careers. Both garnered the highest individual and team honors a player can receive. Both men's stats and bodies of work compare quite well with all but a few of their brethren who already sit in the Hall. Both have poured several lifetimes worth of blood, sweat and tears into the effort that should have more than earned them their place in that august assembly.
Yet both are still waiting -- in all likelihood a little less hopeful with each passing year and subsequent HOF snub.
What, pray tell, is the freaking problem?
I'm just a passionate observer, as outside this process as I could possibly be, so I can only speculate here...but my best educated guess goes something like this.
In the modern era (post 1946) 34 offensive linemen have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That's roughly one every other year. In contrast, 23 QB's and 25 RB's (half- or full) have gone in in the same period. Consider that there's only one of the former starting for any given team, and at most two of the latter, compared with five O-linemen on each team...and you begin to grasp just how weighted the ballots are with regards to the unglamorous trenches of the gridirion. There's never been an official document concerning this, but you can bet your bottom dollar in the back rooms and power dealings of the NFL the prevailing opinion goes more or less like this: all those pilgrims to the Holy See in Ohio each and every year are not there to see and hear about some half-remembered blocker for the glitterati like Brown, Simpson, Sanders, et al -- therefore why go crazy selecting no-names and cluttering up the hallowed Hall with 'em?
Or to put it another way: how many offensive -- or defensive, for that matter -- linemen have won the Heisman Trophy in the last 40 years as opposed to how many QB's, RB's or WR's? There you go.
Long before football supplanted baseball as the biggest and most-watched sport in all of America the league placed a much higher premium on the entertainment value of its product, i.e. it's high-profile, exciting stars, than it did on the unsung working-stiff brutes who labored on their behalf. Touchdowns sell tickets; cross-blocks, traps and pulling guards...not so much.
Even so, the fact that to date not one single Hog -- not a single member of one of the most overpowering units in the history of the game -- has made it to Canton is more than just wrong. It's a fundamentally flawed approach to not only how the game is truly played but also how the league and the fans choose to remember those who played it better than the rest. These are the Hogs we're talking about here. Gibbs version of Coryell's one-back, power running game complemented in deadly fashion by a vertical passing attack that was a threat to swallow up to an entire field in one single play, at any time in any game, revolutionized the NFL. His offense became the prototype for a lot of teams attacks, and the single biggest cause of that entire strategic shift, far and away the largest part of the imitation that was the sincerest form of flattery for Gibbs' prolific offenses, was his offensive line.
The Hogs changed the game in the trenches every bit as radically and fundamentally as the Purple People Eaters of Carl Eller, Jim Marshall, Allen Page and Gary Larsen did with defensive lines, and the Steel Curtain of Mean Joe Greene, LC Greenwood, Dwight White and Ernie Holmes did after that. Plays like 70 Chip and 50 Gut became a part of every team's repertoire, though no one else ran them as flawlessly and implacably as did the 'Skins -- specifically, the Hogs.
I don't care who your team is or what kind of fan you are, if you're honest with yourself and know the game even a little you know that's a stone cold fact.
How is it that not one of that dynamic, domineering unit is immortalized in the Hall? Not one.
Here's how. Pro football's HOF balloting process has become a ridiculous joke, a tragic, maudlin charicature of it's original, intended self. More and more these days the selection process resembles one of those cheesy high school proms we all remember where the king and queen were chosen for reasons that had nothing to do with the criteria that should have mattered, and everything to do with shallow vanity and inordinately puffed-up egos out of all proportion to the circumstances. While I might have fantasized about being named king of one of my proms back then, today I thank my lucky stars I didn't have to sell my soul or whatever equivalent it would have taken to pull that off. Unlike some I knew, at least my integrity graduated with me, whole and intact.
The Board of Selectors of the NFL HOF have become no better than the worst of those superficial, image-conscious cliques from our juvenile, less principled pasts. With the sole exception of the Pro Football Writer's of America delegate, who serves a two year term per appointment, the rest of the 44-person group sit in open-ended seats. In plain English, once he or she is made a member of the Board there are very few ways that individual can ever lose that membership.
That bears repeating: once appointed to the board a member can expect to remain a voting part of the selection process until such time as said member no longer wants to, or death...whichever happens to come first.
I honestly couldn't tell you what the rationale for this lifetime of privilege was, but I can tell you what it really is: a very small, extremely snobby good ole boys club. As with all such fraternities, by and large the membership thinks very highly of it's supposed expertise -- which by the way exists only in their collective self-esteem -- so much so that they are as hidebound, as dogmatic, as idealogically inflexible as a bible-thumping Southern Baptist octogenarian, a lifelong card-carrying member of the Moral Majority who just knows that everyone who disagrees with him is going straight to hell because for damn sure he ain't. What's more, many of these loosely described "experts" often go out of their way to wage propoganda campaigns against certain players they don't like, trying as hard as they can for as long as they can to keep certain players out of the Hall forever.
Case in point: Paul Zimmerman's virulent, irrational maneuvering to keep Art Monk -- one of the most deserving HOF'ers I've ever seen, Redskin or no -- out of Canton no matter what (a policy that for far too many years worked better than it ever should have).
More often than not their antipathy can be traced back to some long-ago personality clash or perceived snub by the player in question, and has little or nothing to do with any honest assessment of that players' skills and/or career achievements. Color me incredulous but isn't that kind of malicious, petty b.s. the absolute last thing that people who decide who to bestow pro football's highest honor on should indulge in?
Is it too much to ask of these powers-that-be that they are at least able to put personal feelings aside, if not on a regular basis THEN AT LEAST WHEN IT COMES TIME TO SUBMIT THEIR BALLOTS?
Wouldn't those inducted feel even better about their admission if those who decided they were worthy of it based their decision solely on each player's play rather than his way? Shouldn't HOF-caliber players be picked because their skill speaks for their greatness, not for their great, endlessly self-promoting speaking skill? (see Irvin, Michael J) Since when are the best of the best, the greatest of the greats, passed or failed on the say-so of this arbitrarily assembled group of people who for the most part are as pedestrian and mediocre as those they sit in judgment of are singularly, uniquely gifted?
What in the heck is wrong with that picture?
And at what point does this absurdly lopsided farce cease to be reality and revert back to it's rightful Fractured Fairy Tale existence? I for one would like to know.
So, I'm guessing, would guys like Joe Jacoby and Big Russ Grimm -
Once again, no Hogs made the final list.
Once again, Joey T., Gary Clark and Ken Harvey were deemed unworthy.
For one more year, at least, Mssrs. Grimm, Jacoby, Lachey, May, Theismann, Clark and Harvey are on the outside looking in. For one more year each of these worthy candidates must wait a little longer in hopes of making it into the NFL'a most exclusive fraternity. For one more year these former Redskins must look in their mirrors and ask the question, "was it all enough? Did I do enough?"
Nevermind their combined fourteen Super Bowl rings. Put aside their 21 overall Pro Bowl selections. Throw out their ten total 1st Team All-Pro nominations. Completely discount their eighty cumulative seasons of playing the most physically arduous sport at very high levels in the toughest league there is.
Take away all those accolades, throw them all out the window...and each one of those men deserves a place amongst their legendary peers anyway. Period. No ifs, ands or buts.
In a perfect world, anyway.
I'm not blind; as loyal as I am to all current and former Redskins players, alive or dead, I still realize that some of those names are more deserving of a bust than others. In all honesty, a couple of them should consider themselves fortunate to have even made a HOF ballot, much less make the Hall itself. And two in particular, former linemates Grimm and Jacoby, should by all rights, by anyone's criteria, have already been voted in.
That those two original Hogs are deserving is not the question.
Whether they ever receive their due is.
Sadly, if they haven't by now they most likely will not. Every year they are left out, every year more players become eligible, lessens their chances that much more. The farther we get from their glory days on the field, the less great they seem to the voters they must depend on. In a world full of injustices and unnecessary hardships this sits way, way down on the list of That Which Should Not Be...but it is a travesty nonetheless.
Grimm, drafted in the 3rd round in 1981, played center at Pitt, but in his rookie training camp was moved to left guard, where he immediately became a powerful fixture. He, along with Jacoby and fellow linemates May, George Starke and Jeff Bostic, became known as The Hogs, and rapidly cemented their reputation as one of if not the finest offensive line in the entire NFL. In a career that spanned 11 years and 140 games, Big Russ started five NFC Championship Games, four Super Bowls (winning 3), appeared in 4 consecutive Pro Bowls, and was named 1st team All-Pro four times. A punishing blocker, he was named to the all-80's team as one of the best players of that decade. Most important, perhaps, he came to be known as the Redskins' answer to the Cowboys and Randy White; in his prime he more than held his own against our hated rivals vaunted defense, led by their most intimidating player.
Jacoby wasn't even drafted -- by any team -- coming out of Louisville the same year, 1981. He was signed to a free agent contract by the Redskins and in no time at all had become their starting left tackle. He would hold that position for the next 13 years and 170 games, during which time he started 19 playoff games, tied for 21st all-time. He too was named to four consecutive Pro Bowls, and named 1st team All-Pro four straight seasons. As with Grimm, he was named to the NFL's all-80's team, and was named one of the 70 Greatest Redskins after retiring. He was one of the lynch pins of a dominating line that paved the way for a series of 'Skins running backs, from John Riggins to Timmy Smith through Kelvin Bryant to Earnest Byner, one of the key components of the virtually unstoppable ground game that symbolized the Gibbs' Super Bowl-winning juggernauts of that era.
Both of these men had long, excellent careers. Both garnered the highest individual and team honors a player can receive. Both men's stats and bodies of work compare quite well with all but a few of their brethren who already sit in the Hall. Both have poured several lifetimes worth of blood, sweat and tears into the effort that should have more than earned them their place in that august assembly.
Yet both are still waiting -- in all likelihood a little less hopeful with each passing year and subsequent HOF snub.
What, pray tell, is the freaking problem?
I'm just a passionate observer, as outside this process as I could possibly be, so I can only speculate here...but my best educated guess goes something like this.
In the modern era (post 1946) 34 offensive linemen have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That's roughly one every other year. In contrast, 23 QB's and 25 RB's (half- or full) have gone in in the same period. Consider that there's only one of the former starting for any given team, and at most two of the latter, compared with five O-linemen on each team...and you begin to grasp just how weighted the ballots are with regards to the unglamorous trenches of the gridirion. There's never been an official document concerning this, but you can bet your bottom dollar in the back rooms and power dealings of the NFL the prevailing opinion goes more or less like this: all those pilgrims to the Holy See in Ohio each and every year are not there to see and hear about some half-remembered blocker for the glitterati like Brown, Simpson, Sanders, et al -- therefore why go crazy selecting no-names and cluttering up the hallowed Hall with 'em?
Or to put it another way: how many offensive -- or defensive, for that matter -- linemen have won the Heisman Trophy in the last 40 years as opposed to how many QB's, RB's or WR's? There you go.
Long before football supplanted baseball as the biggest and most-watched sport in all of America the league placed a much higher premium on the entertainment value of its product, i.e. it's high-profile, exciting stars, than it did on the unsung working-stiff brutes who labored on their behalf. Touchdowns sell tickets; cross-blocks, traps and pulling guards...not so much.
Even so, the fact that to date not one single Hog -- not a single member of one of the most overpowering units in the history of the game -- has made it to Canton is more than just wrong. It's a fundamentally flawed approach to not only how the game is truly played but also how the league and the fans choose to remember those who played it better than the rest. These are the Hogs we're talking about here. Gibbs version of Coryell's one-back, power running game complemented in deadly fashion by a vertical passing attack that was a threat to swallow up to an entire field in one single play, at any time in any game, revolutionized the NFL. His offense became the prototype for a lot of teams attacks, and the single biggest cause of that entire strategic shift, far and away the largest part of the imitation that was the sincerest form of flattery for Gibbs' prolific offenses, was his offensive line.
The Hogs changed the game in the trenches every bit as radically and fundamentally as the Purple People Eaters of Carl Eller, Jim Marshall, Allen Page and Gary Larsen did with defensive lines, and the Steel Curtain of Mean Joe Greene, LC Greenwood, Dwight White and Ernie Holmes did after that. Plays like 70 Chip and 50 Gut became a part of every team's repertoire, though no one else ran them as flawlessly and implacably as did the 'Skins -- specifically, the Hogs.
I don't care who your team is or what kind of fan you are, if you're honest with yourself and know the game even a little you know that's a stone cold fact.
How is it that not one of that dynamic, domineering unit is immortalized in the Hall? Not one.
Here's how. Pro football's HOF balloting process has become a ridiculous joke, a tragic, maudlin charicature of it's original, intended self. More and more these days the selection process resembles one of those cheesy high school proms we all remember where the king and queen were chosen for reasons that had nothing to do with the criteria that should have mattered, and everything to do with shallow vanity and inordinately puffed-up egos out of all proportion to the circumstances. While I might have fantasized about being named king of one of my proms back then, today I thank my lucky stars I didn't have to sell my soul or whatever equivalent it would have taken to pull that off. Unlike some I knew, at least my integrity graduated with me, whole and intact.
The Board of Selectors of the NFL HOF have become no better than the worst of those superficial, image-conscious cliques from our juvenile, less principled pasts. With the sole exception of the Pro Football Writer's of America delegate, who serves a two year term per appointment, the rest of the 44-person group sit in open-ended seats. In plain English, once he or she is made a member of the Board there are very few ways that individual can ever lose that membership.
That bears repeating: once appointed to the board a member can expect to remain a voting part of the selection process until such time as said member no longer wants to, or death...whichever happens to come first.
I honestly couldn't tell you what the rationale for this lifetime of privilege was, but I can tell you what it really is: a very small, extremely snobby good ole boys club. As with all such fraternities, by and large the membership thinks very highly of it's supposed expertise -- which by the way exists only in their collective self-esteem -- so much so that they are as hidebound, as dogmatic, as idealogically inflexible as a bible-thumping Southern Baptist octogenarian, a lifelong card-carrying member of the Moral Majority who just knows that everyone who disagrees with him is going straight to hell because for damn sure he ain't. What's more, many of these loosely described "experts" often go out of their way to wage propoganda campaigns against certain players they don't like, trying as hard as they can for as long as they can to keep certain players out of the Hall forever.
Case in point: Paul Zimmerman's virulent, irrational maneuvering to keep Art Monk -- one of the most deserving HOF'ers I've ever seen, Redskin or no -- out of Canton no matter what (a policy that for far too many years worked better than it ever should have).
More often than not their antipathy can be traced back to some long-ago personality clash or perceived snub by the player in question, and has little or nothing to do with any honest assessment of that players' skills and/or career achievements. Color me incredulous but isn't that kind of malicious, petty b.s. the absolute last thing that people who decide who to bestow pro football's highest honor on should indulge in?
Is it too much to ask of these powers-that-be that they are at least able to put personal feelings aside, if not on a regular basis THEN AT LEAST WHEN IT COMES TIME TO SUBMIT THEIR BALLOTS?
Wouldn't those inducted feel even better about their admission if those who decided they were worthy of it based their decision solely on each player's play rather than his way? Shouldn't HOF-caliber players be picked because their skill speaks for their greatness, not for their great, endlessly self-promoting speaking skill? (see Irvin, Michael J) Since when are the best of the best, the greatest of the greats, passed or failed on the say-so of this arbitrarily assembled group of people who for the most part are as pedestrian and mediocre as those they sit in judgment of are singularly, uniquely gifted?
What in the heck is wrong with that picture?
And at what point does this absurdly lopsided farce cease to be reality and revert back to it's rightful Fractured Fairy Tale existence? I for one would like to know.
So, I'm guessing, would guys like Joe Jacoby and Big Russ Grimm -
