Unhappy with Hall's Voting? Here's One Change It Could (Should?) Make

Buddy Parker this year was the first runner-up to Tom Flores as the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame’s coaching candidate, but he wasn’t chosen for the Class of 2022. Ken Riley was the first runner-up to Drew Pearson as the senior candidate for the Hall’s Class of 2021, but he, too, didn’t cross the finish line in 2022.

The reason? Easy. Different years, different voters.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame holds four different votes each year. One is the modern-era session, where a board of 49 selectors chooses five modern-era inductees prior to the Super Bowl and votes on senior, coaching and contributor candidates. The other three elections are months earlier, with the Hall’s nine-member subcommittees choosing those three senior, coaching and contributor candidates.

A week ago the senior and coaches committees (which are the same selectors) chose Cliff Branch and Dick Vermeil as candidates for the Class of 2022, and on Tuesday the contributor committee will pick another for the Class of ’22. Then the three choices will be put to a vote for enshrinement early next year by the Hall’s board of selectors.

Nothing unusual there, right? Not so fast.

The Hall historically doesn’t include all nine sub-committee voters in one session. It includes five. Each year it chooses five members to make the decisions, rotating the group annually to ensure impartiality … and that’s the case again this year. Except there’s a difference now: Where voters once were flown into Canton, housed in local hotels and brought into the Hall to vote, that’s no longer the procedure.

COVID took care of that.

Beginning last year the Hall inaugurated voting by Zoom, and the process went so well it’s continuing it again this fall … and no surprise there. First of all, there’s another surge in COVID cases, so caution and social distancing are encouraged. But, second, both the Hall and its voters seemed to prefer the virtual experience – with the Hall saving time, as well as money, and voters allowed to operate from their homes rather than flying to Canton.

So the coaches and senior sub-committees met virtually last week, with five selectors on the call with Hall-of-Fame staff and consultants Drew Pearson and Joe Horrigan. They started at 9:30 a.m. EDT and concluded in mid-afternoon. And when they finished? A lot of people out there wondered what happened to Riley and Parker who, they believed, were the next men up.

As I said, different year, different voters.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Not now it doesn’t. With voting now done via Zoom, there’s no reason the Hall can’t include all nine members of its sub-committees on each call. When the Hall’s board of selectors met in January to determine the modern-era Class of 2021, all 48 voters were involved (the group has since grown by one) in a near nine-hour session.

Afterward, the reaction was so positive that several selectors predicted it would continue going forward … and it has. To which I ask: If the Hall can put 48 voters on a call without complaint, why can’t it put on nine? It can. And it should. Because then the conversations would be more comprehensive and, frankly, more impartial.

Let’s face it, there was support for Riley a year ago within the senior committee that there wasn’t last week, and I know thousands of Bengals’ fans would like to know why. The same goes for Parker. He was a near-miss a year ago, and a near-miss again this year. So how does someone who finishes second one year not move to the head of the class the next?

Let me repeat: Different year, different voters.

But wouldn’t it make more sense to have a different year and the same voters? It works for the Hall’s modern-era ballot, and it can work for its sub-committees, too. Plus, there’s this: With a five-member group all it takes is three votes to carry the room. With nine, it would take five, and I know that sounds negligible. But it’s a 66 percent increase over what we have now and represents a majority of the entire board – not one-third, as we have today.

When the Hall introduced the contributor category in 2015 it flew all nine sub-committee members to Washington, D.C. for a meeting that included four consultants. Since then, sessions include five selectors and two consultants, and that seemed OK … until COVID hit.

But now that we know we can operate as easily … no, more easily … via Zoom, why won’t the Hall include all nine sub-committee members -- especially when it included over five times that number for its modern-era vote? I don’t know, either. But, as I said, it should.

All I know is that after last week’s senior vote was announced, more than one outraged Bengals’ fan asked, “Where’s the consistency?” It’s a good question, and it’s not a knock on Branch. All 16 candidates under consideration were Hall-of-Fame worthy. But how did Riley go to the front of the class one year, only to move backward the next? If all members of a board were involved annually – as they are with the modern-era vote – you wouldn’t have to answer.

Maybe you agree. Maybe not. But as long as votes are done via Zoom – and that seems to be the procedure for the immediate future – tell me why you shouldn’t have all selectors present. There’s no additional cost. Conversations would be more comprehensive. And maybe, just maybe, we wouldn’t have to question why a particular candidate went from frontrunner one year to an also-ran the next.

Because we would know.