2021 Hall of Very Good Finalists

[Brian wolf]

Thanks ...

[RyanChristiansen]

Every year someone has a complaint about the process, or someone's favorite hasnt been nominated. Geezer Louise ...

The process isn't exactly transparent:

• You submit five names, and maybe you include some justifications for your selection, or maybe you don't, but you don't know whether those justifications make it to the committee or whether they consider them. You don't know whether non-NFL experience counts, or which non-NFL experience counts.
  
  You submit your five names to the committee, and you know the five names that you submitted, but you don't know the entire list of names that were submitted.
  
  You don't know how the committee decided which names should appear on the ballot.
  
  You vote on who should make it into the HOVG and then get the results without knowing how many votes each name received.

This is how I remember the process goes from past years. Am I incorrect about any of this? It's very difficult to search for past threads in this forum, so I might be wrong about something here. It's not a fully democratic process, and it shouldn't be. I agree that a committee is needed as a filter for the process, and I appreciate the work that they do, but it's not exactly fair to complain about complainers when the process is so opaque. In any environment, an opaque process discourages voting.

[Brian wolf]

Trust me, I am not complaining but say I vote on three offensive tackles, obviously voting on Mike Kenn first means more to me than voting on Grady Alderman third. Though each candidate counts as a vote, I wondered if putting our ten votes in order of want or importance would help break any stalemates but it just might not matter either way.

[Gary Najman]

Trust me, I am not complaining but say I vote on three offensive tackles, obviously voting on Mike Kenn first means more to me than voting on Grady Alderman third. Though each candidate counts as a vote, I wondered if putting our ten votes in order of want or importance would help break any stalemates but it just might not matter either way.

I usually write the names in alphabetical order. To choose the five nominations, for the past couple of years I decided to write overlooked players on previous years (like Russ Washington, who made this time into the last 20). Of the final 20, I usually have 4 to 6 that I know I will select, and then I study the others (especially the players before 1970, that was the year I was born), and I choose the final 5 or so.

[Brian wolf]

It has to be tough bringing the number from what, 75 down to the final seven or eight, if there is even that many elected.
I was just looking for another way to help end a stalemate or gridlock ...

[JuggernautJ]

It has to be tough bringing the number from what, 75 down to the final seven or eight, if there is even that many elected.
I was just looking for another way to help end a stalemate or gridlock ...

The winnowing process is (personally, anyway) very difficult.
I spent hours looking at every one of the PFR pages for each of the 75 nominees (who had a page).
I then looked at wiki entries for each of the 75 as well as searching most names in the new Coffin Corner article index. For defensive linemen especially I looked at John Turney's work at PFJ. There were other sources as well... I have a decent sized football library...

I noted each individual's All Pro/Pro Bowl and Championship numbers as well as any other awards... POY, MVP and/or Team of a Decade. That gave me a list of about 15 who I knew I would vote for and about... 25 other guys who could've filled my last five spots. Differentiating between those was very difficult.

As far as ties go, (and if I recall correctly) in the past there have been only two ties in the selection process (based on what I was told) and they have both been in the winnowing down (committee) process, not in the final vote. In that case 21 individuals are submitted for final votes instead of the usual 20 (as was the case last year).

[Brian wolf]

The beauty of the HOVG is that the voters have much more remembrance and respect for pre-1950 players than the HOF voters in my opinion ...

[TanksAndSpartans]

Every year someone has a complaint about the process, or someone's favorite hasnt been nominated. Geezer Louise ...

I see this as kind of a hobby. Where's the fun in it if we can't discuss it?

[TanksAndSpartans]

The beauty of the HOVG is that the voters have much more remembrance and respect for pre-1950 players than the HOF voters in my opinion ...

Unfortunately the data doesn't support this. Apart from Ted Nesser and maybe one or two others, the pre-1950 players that have gotten in were picked out of a hat by Bob Carroll. I've posted the exact counts before - it's on the board somewhere. The entire decade of the 2010s went by with just 1 or 2 pre-1950 players getting in.

[JeffreyMiller]

Well, I lobbied for Swede Youngstrom, have voted multiple times for Nesser, Latone, Peggy Parrat, and others. There are several members of the committee who support pre-1950s nominees. However, I think you're correct that there is a tendency toward more modern players. I would guess that the majority of voters are interested in seeing players they actually saw play get voted in .