Aikman, Wright are Hall of Famers

Well, I guess it’s kind of hard to argue bias when 2 get in. Congrats fellas.

yah i guess irvin will hopefuly get in next year, he deserved to be in this year. you guys think without the incident a couple months ago he gets in???

Those were the Six that I thught would get in this year, but I dont think Harry carson is a hall of famer. Warren Moon for what he did in the NFL and the 5 championships in the CFL, he’s a Hall of famer although I lot of people dont want to count the records he has in the CFL, but its the pro football hall of fame, not the NFL hall of fame. Looks like Irvin is going to have a long wait, if he gets in at all. He better get hold his breath for the next couple of years and hopes he gets in because some good receievrs are coming up for the hall in the next couple of years.

Does anyone know the players up for the hall next year?

My only quibble with this group is Madden. I think Carson definitely belonged. He was a textbook 3-4 ILB, which gets little of the glamour that outside guys do because they get most of the sacks. On the whole I have no complaints, since I think Madden was a borderline case, not an undeserving one.

Len,

I respectfully disagree about the bias charge. While Len Pasquarelli screamed that the Metroplex charges had no merit, I think in fact the noise the Texas scribes and fans made overrode the bias. Because why was Rayfield Wright suddenly deserving this year and not two years ago? He was in the final six and lost on an up or down vote then.

What changed, except the amount of scrutiny that the Hall voters received?

In my experience I’ve found reporters are thin-skinned and highly suspectible to pressure. I think the pressure worked here. Congrats, IMO to everybody who made noise.

With that, a prediction: I just heard an e-mail read on ESPNews from a disgruntled Redskins fan who said, “the Redskins won three Super Bowls and only one player from those teams, John Riggins, is in.”

Charges of “Redskin bias” are about to fill the air. And in time, they’ll work to Monk’s benefit.

WHO ELSE ON THOSE DEADSKIN TEAMS DESERVE TO GO IN THE HOF?

interesting tidbit..hof’ers from some nfl teams cards colts 10,eagles 8,vikings cheifs 7,rams raiders 13,fins 9, lions 12, 49ers 11, skins browns 15,steelers 17, giants 18, packers 20, bears 26, cowboys 9….see a bias towards anyone?

Art Monk deserves it if Swann does.

Hayes should be the guy we push for the most- the man changed the game by forcing the invention of the Zone Defense. ANYONE who changes the game itself should be in.

Any thoughts about who will introduce Rayfield Wright? The slam dunk would have been Tom Landry who had the foresight to see Rafield’s potential as an OT. It is a shame that Rayfield had to wait all these years to assume his ’Wright’full place in the HOF. My guess is that he will ask Roger to introduce him.

As far as Aikman, I guess the line is it will be Jerry Jones, but my favorite would be Michael Irvin.

Thank goodness L.C. Greenwood didn’t make it, particularly at the expense of another Cowboy.

Don’t even get me going about Warren Moon making it.

AMEN SCOOTER,ALSO ,IF TOO TALL AND HARVEY ARE NOT IN THERE,GREENWOOD SHOULDNT EVEN BE CONSIDERED.HIS STATS DONT COME CLOSE.

warren moon deserved it. the guy had a great arm and showed it, ALOT. the guy was donavan mcnabb before donavan mcnabb.

Micheal getting some love from mike Celizic
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11162136/

while Aikman and Irvin going in together would have been nice……it just gives us Cowboy fans something else to watch and cheer for next year when Irvin does get in!!!

Its hard to tell whether its a result of outright bias or not, but the fact remains that there are deserving Cowboys being left out. We need to keep the pressure on the media to get our guys in. Write ’em letters, call in to national talk shows, etc. Cowboys Fans need to represent!

Manster 65,

Monk probably. Darrel Green will go, but his 5 years are not up yet. Once the Redskins bias thing gets going Russ Grimm will get a lot more attention. He was there for most of their top tier run.

I thought Zimmerman should of got in instead of Carson. He’s more deserving than Carson. Carson was a good player, just not a hall of famer.

Come on Derrick, Harry Carson made the Pro Bowl NINE times and was, for much of his career, a star on some really bad teams. If we’re gonna wave Rayfield Wright’s stats at people, then Carson’s, which are even better,, shouldn’t be diminished.

I’ll add that I got to see all of his career, so I’m not just parroting data off a paper. He deserved to get in a long time ago.

Derrick,

Irvin is the player that should have gotten in. .. Irvin’s numbers are HOF material, even without the 3 rings. Lynn Swan caught 336 passes for 5,462 yards and 51 TDs. Irvin’s receptions and yardage more than DOUBLE Pittsburgh’s Hall of Fame receiver’s. Many people say Swan is in the HOF because of his contribution to Super Bowl teams. In 4 Super Bowls Swan had 364 yards and 2 TDs. Irvin in 3 had 355 yards and 2 TDs. The “Playmakers” playoff & Super Bowl statistics only validate his selection into the Hall. If the biggest reason Swan is in the Hall, is because he meant so much to the Steelers SB teams, then the same arguement can be made for what Irvin meant to the Cowboys, but Irvin put up HOF #s in the regular season too. … It just would have been really sweet to see Aikman and Irvin go in together.

Most of the Redskins’ Hogs should get in. Joe Jacoboy and Russ Grimm for example. Their tiny DB who played till he was 50 will get in too.
Hey Jerry W, not every single Cowboys employee deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Most of those ball clubs you listed have been around for 80+ years. That is longer than the Cowboys have existed.
Yay, the Cowboys are our team, but during my lifetime, I’ve seen dynastic Raiders, Giants, Redskins, Bears, Niner, Steeler, Bills teams loaded with worthy players.

Which Cowboys are now deserving of the HOF?
Larry Allen, Nate Newton, Mark Stepnoski, Erik Williams, Charles Haley, Deion, Chuck Howley, Cornell Green, Lee Roy Jordan, Harvey Martin, Too Tall Jones, Charlie Waters, Michael Irvin?
Only Deion is a lock, and who knows which uniform he’ll wear.

I’m not 100% certain that even Irvin deserves to be in the HOF. However, if Swann is in there, and he’s the weakest WR by far, then perhaps Irvin should. But then so should Gary Clark and Art Monk and Irving Fryar, Chris Carter, Tim Brown, Andre Reed, Henry Ellard, and so forth. And if it’s world championships you look at, Irvin is going to be hurt by Emmitt and Aikman. That they were termed the triplets is irrelevant, that’s a fan’s term, it’s how we chose to see the team, and the voters aren’t fans.
The voters aren’t going to reward every cowboy for those championships, so Irvin may be hurt by Aikman and Smith being in the hall. His off the field behavior can’t help.
There are only 17 WRs in the hall.

Paul Zimmerman has a piece up on Sports Illustrated saying some of the voters in the room this year said it was the best HOF class ever, because it was the toughtest to vote for — you heard lots of support for Irvin, Thurman Thomas, Bob Kuechenberg, Claude Humphrey and Gary Zimmermann, in addition to the six awarded today.

I say it’s the voters’ own damn fault. They knocked out Carson and Wright, not to mention Bob Hayes in the last two years when they had made the final six and only needed yes votes to get in. There were only four members in each of the last two classes, if memory serves correctly.

But getting cute and then voting to correct that cuteness, they’re creating a huge backlog. What these idiots don’t get is that they’re not voting on players from a 16 team league, as they were into the ’70s.

They’ve got twice as many teams and that many more candidates now, so saying that there are only four guys in a year is stupid. Especially when you consider 2005; they only voted in Dan Marino, Steve Young and two guys from the veterans committee pushed from the ‘20s and ’30s. I’m sure two of this year’s snubbed class were just as worthy last year.

Open ballots, people. That’s the only way to get some fairness into this process.

Ive heard there are some extra sports writers who have a say in the HOF bids and they are from NY and Washington. That bodes well for the boys. Open ballots would be an eye opener. You wonder if these guys decided to put some boys in to cut down some controversy. im sure they dont want the ballots open.

Rafael,

Good point!

If the voters weren’t forced to correct their mistakes from past years, they could have added two more highly deserving players this year.

Carson and Wright should have been voted in ages ago. It is just mind-boggling to wonder at the thought process that would eliminate those two in prior years, but vote them in now; especially since the voters had to go out of their way to eliminate them when they made the finals the last time. [‘Well, I don’t think this one’s deserving of getting in on the 14th ballot, but on the 15th, that would be OK!’]

Art Monk’s problem is that for a good portion of his career, he was the second-best receiver on his team, behind Gary Clark.

So, how much credit do you give to a player who was an excellent possession receiver, but was basically the number two guy, yet lasted forever?

I think Monk will get in, but I can see the problem voters have with him, and there are now a lot of other deserving players who have been neglected, including Gary Clark.

Larry Allen is a lock for the Hall of Fame.

Wow, finally! Rayfield Wright belonged in the HOF back in the mid ’80s!

Aikman’s induction will open the door for Irvin to get in, because who do you think he was throwing most of those passes to?

Michael Irvin will be inducted next year.

Emmitt is definitely first ballot, along with Larry Allen, but I won’t hold my breath for Allen, because look at how long it took Rayfield to get in. LOL

As far as Harry Carson is concerned, he deserved to be inducted, but by the same token, so should Chuck Howley and LeRoy Jordan, if we’re talking linebackers.

Of the ’70s teams, Bob Hayes, Cliff Harris, Charlie Waters, Ed Jones, Drew Pearson, and Harvey Martin deserve to be in. If Lynn Swann and John Stallworth are in, so should Drew Pearson!

Of the ’90s bunch, Emmitt Smith and Larry Allen are locks. Darren Woodson, Jay Novacek, Darryl Johnston, Charles Haley, Nate Newton, and Mark Tuinei deserve serious consideration.

Deion should go in as a Falcon.

I think the voters are idiots! It’s true that the backlog they’ve created by not voting for 6 everytime, is their own damned fault!

How in the world can a team that has played in 8 Super Bowls, winning 5,and with all those winning seasons, including I believe, 18 straight playoff appearances have only 7 players in the HOF? The Lions haven’t won any championships since 1957 and they have 12 people in the HOF? There is definitely a Cowboys bias!

I am glad Rayfield Wright got his due. All I can say is: it’s about time. Now I only hope he mentions every single one of his teammates in his induction speech who is not in the HOF and should be, and specifically draws attention to the contributions they made to the success of not only the Dallas Cowboys team, but the NFL in general.

I am glad Warren Moon got in, simply because he opened up the game for African American QB’s and broke down a lot of stereotypes about “black quarterbacks”. Although he didn’t win a Super Bowl, like Doug Williams did, I believe he was a pioneer and as much a victim of opportunity as many other great QB’s who were denied SB victories/appearances but are in the Hall. His numbers are undoubtedly inflated by playing in the offensive schemes he did, but he still made the plays and was a great QB in every sense of the word. With the right team he may very well have won a Super Bowl, who knows. I mean really, think about it, are the things Steve Young did with the 49ers that got him in the HOF things that, say, Boomer Esiason could not have done if he had been 49ers QB? Perhaps a controversial statement to some, but I think Boomer could have done at least as good with that team. I think Young is one of the more overrated QB’s in the HOF, personally.

Madden should have gotten his ticket punched as a ‘Contributer’, not as a coach. There is no question that his name is synonymous with the NFL because of his color commentary career and video game franchise. As a coach, IMHO, he isn’t even up to Tom Flores, who is not in. Contributer all the way though.

I have a feeling they are going to string Irvin along as long as they can. He is one of my favorite all time players and as a person, but he also is a lightning rod. He evokes a lot of passion and emotions, ironically the same way he played the game. Honestly, it probably would have been this way no matter what team he played on. Being on the Cowboys just doesn’t help.

This HOF star chamber-secret-elitist-selection committee thing really bothers me on a lot of levels. This HOF has only as much credibility as its electors, and considering the record, that is precious little in my book. At this point I would like to see Jerry Jones or Boone Pickens, or one of JJ’s other oil buddies step up and throw down the $$$$ on a Dallas Cowboys Hall of Fame in close proximity to the new stadium. Complete with multimedia displays, pictures, banners, Cotton Bowl tickets, busts of the players, and all of the memorabalia. The cherry on top would be a full size statue of Tom Landry out front. Now that is a Hall of Fame I would travel to for a visit!!

Oh, I wish Emmitt tells the Hall to shove their hall nomination up their *! I wish for once a sure-fire Hall of Famer would tell the voters that their recognition is meaningless. How can it be that it takes Irvin 3+ tries to get in, if he gets in? Oh, Emmitt make us proud and tell the hall to shove it!

How would it look, if the Rushing King told media guys their approval is meaningless? How can it be that journalist decide who gets in? Does anyone really believe John Clayton is qualified to evaluate the best player of all-time? I don’t think he ever played a single minute of organized sports in his entire live (I know this might be a stretch, but work with me)! I know some of us watch as much football as he does. Are we qualified to vote? Uh, NO!!! And neither should journalist, its time that HOF members, league personnel, coaches make the selections.

I agree that JJ just needs to start the Cowboys HOF. I wonder if they will ever enshrine Bob Hayes, or if I’ll be alive to see Larry go in and I’m 24. Sorry, just pissed off!

Rafael,

I’m not saying Cow bias doesn’t exist. I have to defer to someone much more knowledgeable than I, Roger Staubach, when he says that after 2004 voting, even he became convinced that there is a bias among the old school voters. Personally, I think the bias is not against the Cowboys franchise in general; it is against the 70s teams, as a result of Tex Schramm’s marketing genius.

By my coment, I’m saying that with players numbers 6-7 getting in, the argument for Cow-bias loses a little steam. While I think it still exists, the snub doesn’t seem quite as egregious as it was before. We now venture closer to the territory that other teams’ fans are in, such as the arguments about 80s Redskins and 49ers.