Four former Rams made the penultimate cut: first-time nominees Orlando Pace and Kurt Warner, 4-time finalist Kevin Greene and 5-time finalist Jerome Bettis.
Three coaches made it to the final round this year: Tony Dungy, Jimmy Johnson, and Don Coryell.
The remaining players:
Tim Brown (6-time finalist);
Charles Haley (6-time finalist);
Junior Seau (first year of eligibility);
Will Shields (4-time finalist);
Morten Andersen (2-time finalist);
Marvin Harrison (2-time finalist);
John Lynch (2-time finalist);
Terrell Davis (first time as a finalist).
The first thing I'll have to note is that two more of the greatest receivers of all time, Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt, did not make the top 15. That sticks in my craw a little bit. Bruce, with over 1,000 career catches and top-5 all time in receiving yards should NOT be getting pushed out by any freaking kicker of any time. Nor should Holt, who's top 20 in both those categories despite having to share the ball with the Bruce his whole career.
In addition, John Lynch couldn't cover either Bruce or Holt on his best day, and he's up ahead of them, too. Retiring first got him to the HoF ladder ahead of them, though. Good move. Sorry, Bucs fans. Lynch is a bona fide Hall of Famer. Just a little annoyance here.
This will be a year of much discussion of the immortal Def Leppard question: Is it better to burn out, or fade away? Warner, Davis and Johnson packed a lot of achievement into a short time and didn't pile up the career stats many of their HoF contemporaries have. For instance, Lovie Smith just finished a 2-14 season and still has more career wins than Johnson.
Five of these fifteen can be chosen to be inducted into the Hall in 2015. The announcement, of course, will be Super Bowl weekend. The biased Rams/St. Louis fan here is of course voting for Warner, Pace, Greene, Bettis and Coryell. As for actual predictions:
* Seau is a mortal lock. There's been an unwritten one-player-per-position rule in recent classes, so that could rule Greene out for another year.
* Pace went to five fewer Pro Bowls than Shields; I'm not going to be stunned if Shields goes in first. No one ever seems to talk about Orlando as anything less than a first-ballot Hall of Famer, though, and rightly so.
* Haley, though we didn't hear his name much on NFL Network's reveal show tonight, always seems to have a lot of support, largely because of his five Super Bowl rings. He's a 6-time finalist and made the top 10 last year.
* I'll go with an upset next and predict Tim Brown. Andre Reed jumped over Marvin Harrison last year; Brown could easily do it this year. He and Harrison have pretty equally compelling cases. Brown was in 9 Pro Bowls, had over 1,000 career catches, and is a 6-time finalist vs. Harrison's 2. That 6 might be the key number with the voters.
* Pick number five has to be Warner. Talk about the streaky nature of his career all you want; the man hasn't a thing to apologize for. Three Super Bowls, and in all three, he threw for more yards than any other QB has in that game. Two league MVPs. Career length and numbers very similar to those of Troy Aikman, a first-ballot inductee. And a life story to top almost anybody's in that room his bust will join.
This year would be especially good timing to get Kurt into the Hall; Canton 2016 will be the Year of Favre. Terrell Owens is the other prominent first-time candidate next year, but as long as Cris Carter had to wait, I don't expect the voters to be in a hurry to send T.O. in.
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