Getty Images
The Pro Football Hall of Fame continues to get it wrong.
Jerry Kramer’s resume is as good as any offensive linemen’s in Canton. Kramer was a staple on Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers in the 1960’s. He was first team all-pro on five different occasions, he was voted the guard on the 1960’s all-decade team, and he was also voted one of the offensive lineman on the NFL’s 50th anniversary team honoring the top players from the first 50 years of the league’s history. He was an outstanding offensive lineman, and to top it off, he was the key blocker on the most famous play in NFL history — the Bart Starr game-winning quarterback sneak in the 1967 Ice Bowl.
Yet, at 79 years old in the year 2015, Kramer still finds himself without football’s highest honor. He is yet to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. There are varying opinions as to why Kramer continues to lose out year after year. Some say that Lombardi’s Packers have so many Hall of Famers that there just isn’t reason to put another one in the Hall of Fame, yet why did linebacker Dave Robinson get inducted just a couple years ago? Others say that perhaps his book, ‘Instant Replay’, a tell-all book on the 1967 Packers season, rubbed people the wrong way. But is that a legitimate reason to leave a deserving candidate out in the cold?
I have spoken to multiple writers who sit in that room and vote on the Hall of Famers up for election, and they all say the same thing: if the writers who watched Kramer didn’t believe he was worthy of the Hall of Fame, then how can we, as writers who aren’t old enough to have watched him, put him in? This answer is a valid one, however, if this is the case, why does the Seniors Committee even exist?
The Seniors Committee gives us one to two finalists every year for the Hall of Fame. These finalists almost always receives the final nod from the room and are inducted into the Hall. Most of these players were never considered by the writers of their era nearly as often as Kramer, who was a finalist 10 times, yet because they don’t have that stigma of “not quite a Hall of Famer” the current writers put them in without hesitation.
For example, this year’s Seniors nominee is former Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman Mick Tingelhoff. Tingelhoff was an excellent offensive lineman for a decade and a half, earning himself five first team all-pros. He has a legitimate Hall of Fame candidacy and the committee will almost certainly put him through. Although, here is one major difference, the writers of Tingelhoff’s time never made him a Hall of Fame finalist, yet Kramer was a finalist 10 times. How can the writers hide behind the idea that the writer’s of Kramer’s era didn’t put him in, but will almost certainly give Tingelhoff the nod on Saturday?
Yet, here sits Kramer, a great player and a greater man, approaching his 80th birthday and still does not have a bust in Canton, OH. The writers who have the honor to select the Hall of Fame class each year need to look themselves in the mirror and end the insanity. One year from now, Kramer needs to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame — the committee is out of excuses.
Bill Zimmerman is an NFL writer for www.RantSports.Com. Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google.
