In the wake of both Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft being snubbed from the Hall of Fame (along with Eli Manning and a few others), there have been many questions asked about how to fix the voting process. Colorado head coach Deion Sanders, himself a first-ballot Hall of Famer back in the day, has his own answer.
Speaking to ESPN's Kevin Clark, Sanders suggested that rather than let Hall of Fame votes be done by writers, media representatives and the Pro Football Writers of America, it should be done exclusively by actual Hall of Famers.
Sanders then compared Hall of Fame voters by non-Hall of Famers to The Grinch getting to judge a beauty pageant.
"I wouldn't want the Grinch who stole Christmas voting on a beauty pageant," Sanders said.
When Clark suggested that the writers do a good job of following the league, Sanders dismissively said "No, they don't."
Do fans agree?
Fans have argued for a while now that the media members who vote on the Hall of Fame have no idea what they're doing. But the response to the very notion that players should have final say over who gets in seemed downright offense based on the response.
"This whole attitude is similar to former athletes replacing journalists as analysts on TV. Some of them are great, a lot of them SUCK. They have little to no training, they're biased, petty and jealous, and don't pay as close attention to the leagues they cover as the journos do," one user wrote on X.
"I would trust writers who follow the league better than Hall of Famers who you have no idea if they follow the league or not. Why wouldn’t the Grinch be qualified to judge of beauty pageant?" another mused.
"You know who is historically bad at following the league and giving the next generation its props? Hall of Fame players. Nobody would get in," a third wrote.
"So Deion names his former teammate in Dallas Darren Woodson and two guys who, like him, grew up in the south Florida area in Fred Taylor & Asante Samuel as his cases for who should be in... Got it..."
Simply put, fans want a better caliber of voter for the Hall of Fame - not for the entire pool of voters to be upended.