2009 Will Be The Year Of The Pittsburgh Steelers At The Professional Football Hall Of Fame

Word Cloud Courtesy of Wordles

Professional Football Hall of Fame classes in recent years have been dominated by the Washington Redskins, Buffalo Bills, Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers. 2009 looks like it will be the year of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

20 years after the Steelers won the fourth of their five Super Bowls I'm picking three members of the black and gold for induction, two who were standouts on the team of the decade in the 1970s. Look for L.C. Greenwood, Donnie Shell and Ron Woodson to be in Canton next summer.

Last week, 133 preliminary nominees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2009 were announced. The group joins two Senior Committee picks made earlier in the year.

The first cut comes next month when the initial list is pared to 25 semifinalists. The number of finalists considered for enshrinement will 17, including the two Senior Committee selections.

My picks for the 25-man semifinalist class include... L.C. Greenwood, Donnie Shell, Rod Woodson, Shannon Sharpe, Cornelius Bennett, Richard Dent, Jim Covert, Russ Grimm, Ray Guy, Bob Kuchenberg, Andre Reed, Bruce Smith, Chris Carter, Derrick Thomas, Irving Fryar, Russ Francis, Dermontti Dawson, Nick Lowery, Phil Simms, Hershel Walker, Ken Anderson, Dwight Clark, Paul Tagliabue, Ed DeBartolo Jr. and Gil Brandt.

There's no rhyme nor reason to the order of ths list, other than the three Steerlers starting it off who I'm picking for induction. I worked through the list of preliminary nominees the past few days and have notes on all sorts of rolling paper packs, bar napkins, business cards and envelopes.

It's a 44-person Board of Selectors that decides who gets their ticket punched. The majority of delegates are beat writers; there's one from each city that has a team in the league, except for New York that has two. The Pro Football Writers of America is represented by one selector and there are 11 at-large members of the board.

The class of 2009 will be chosen at a meeting of the Board of Selectors in Tampa on January 31st, the day before Super Bowl XLIII. Under current guidelines the class will range in size from four and seven members.

In order to be selected a nominee must receive at least 80 percent approval of the Board at the annual meeting.

My picks for the class of 2009, based on the list of preliminary nominees are... L.G. Greenwood, Donnie Shell, Rod Woodson, Shannon Sharpe, Cornelius Bennett, Richard Dent and Claude Humphrey.

Humphrey was one of the two Senior Committe picks, Bob Hayes was the other.