Tom Flores HOF snub

[Augie]

9 hours ago, Logic said:

The one that keeps getting me is Don Coryell. 

It is absurd, ridiculous, downright criminal that Coryell isn't in the Hall of Fame. The modern NFL passing game literally would not exist without him. Just an insane, Tasker-level snub.

 

It’s one thing to be very good, another to be great, and still something else to change the game. 

[folz]

There is no question in my mind that that Steelers/Seattle Super Bowl was severely nudged, if not outwardly rigged. I'm a Bills fan through and through, but I also really liked the Steelers teams of the 1970s when I was a kid. So, I had a soft spot for Pittsburgh and was actually rooting for them in Super Bowl XL. But, the refs literally took two TDs away from Seattle, both on really bad calls. It was pretty obvious to most people at that time (except for Steelers fans) that the NFL marketing department had already written the story they wanted to tell of Bettis riding off into the sunset, Cowher getting his ring, and the storied Steelers franchise getting their 5th Lombardi. And they obviously didn't want to change the script. It was the first (but unfortunately not the last) time that I actually started to question the integrity of the game. But it is still probably the most egregious example.

 

And I agree that Coryell should have been in the Hall long ago. I'm not saying that Cowher or Johnson are not worthy (although I do hate me some Jimmy Johnson), but Coryell should have gone in before either of them. And I also think Flores should get in. Two Super Bowl wins as a head coach, one as a player, one as an assistant is a pretty good resume on its own. But it is surprising to me that being the first Hispanic QB and minority head coach to win a Super Bowl doesn't put him over the top. I'm not one to hand someone something just because of race or whatever, but he actually has the credentials, and we tend to celebrate people breaking barriers for minority communities like that in America. So, I think he deserves it.

 

10 hours ago, Ethan in Portland said:

Coryell and Flores both deserve to be in and should have been in years ago. Agreed.

I don't think Cowher is deserving but I can live with it if Flores and Coryell were voted in. I can go along with that.

I don't think Levy was worthy of HOF either. I was shocked he got voted in so fast. Wait, what?

As for Johnson I have no idea why it took this long. Only thing I can think of is the committee may have felt he was going to unretire and come back to coach again.

 

It just floors me that many Bills fans don't give Marv the props he deserves. I think a lot of younger fans just see 4 Super Bowl loses and maybe only remember his failed tenure as GM (not saying you specifically Ethan as I'm not sure how old you are) and think he is overrated. I won't give my full Marv diatribe (because I've done it many times before), but just think about these two points. No other coach has ever brought his team to four consecutive Super Bowls. No one else. None. Not even Belichick in New England during their 20-year domination of the NFL (though he came close). And Marv's personality and coaching had everything to do with that team's unity and resiliency. Just ask the players. And secondly, he was two feet away from beating the combo of Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick in the Super Bowl. If that kick was just a couple of feet truer, the narrative would be completely different. But because it wasn't, because of just two feet, the narrative now is that he was a mediocre coach who got schooled by two great coaches. (btw, that same Bills team beat that same Giants team in the regular season, just 6 weeks before the Super Bowl, in another hard-fought evenly matched game.) Ok, just a little more diatribe...as to impact or innovation, well Marv did that with both special teams and with the no-huddle offense. Whatever the real story is about how the K-gun came about, Marv was the head coach who approved it and then used it exclusively as a weapon.