Professional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good Logo

William Faulkner, genius of a Southern writer, knew of what he wrote when he noted: “The past is not dead. It’s not even past.” For two books and more than 10 years, I have found myself not simply immersed in the past but wallowing in it. That wasn’t new.

While practicing journalism for more than 40 years—you’d think I would have gotten better at it in that time—the past often had to be understood to write about the present. I never got as good at this as Mark J. Price, my former colleague at the Akron Beacon Journal, who has used history’s hook to become one of the newspaper’s greatest assets—past, present, or future (if newspapers have one). We’ve both written books.

His bore an intentionality of the past. Mine were purportedly about football, the industry that once allowed Akron to call itself The Rubber Capital of the World, the place where I live (Akron and Northeast Ohio) and the place I love (Nowata and Oklahoma). Like Mark Price—not the Cavaliers basketball star from Oklahoma, whom I know, too—the past, it would seem, is my past, present, and future. More even than Mark, because I am old. But in the end, all of it, Mark’s writing or mine is about the people who populate the past.

Recently I wrote about the beautiful little girl, Sherry Inman Diamond, whom I loved in the first grade and until the day she died earlier this month. At the same time, though saddened beyond any words that can describe what most would consider silly puppy love—Sherry was no dog, let me assure you; she as a little beauty—I have found myself trying to come to terms with what some in my former profession are doing to a moment grounded in the past and that should bring great joy and satisfaction to Julian Edelman, New England Patriot three-time Super Bowl champion, including Most Valuable Player in Super Bowl LIII. When Edelman retired from the game he was so good at, the story immediately became whether or not Edelman deserved the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He had amazed as a dual-threat college quarterback at Kent State and then turned himself into a memorable NFL slot receiver who shone brightest on the biggest stage.

Talk about premature ejaculations (not sexual, though there is a word that I could use to describe those who seemed to take glee in judging before Edelman’s career was cold).

The judges immediately rendered verdicts on Edelman’s qualifications for football’s highest honor. (Yes, I know that’s their jobs; it used to be mine.) This, despite the fact there is a required cooling off period of five yearsbefore players are eligible for the Hall of Fame. (This could be compared to the cooling saucer that the United States Senate is supposed to temper the hotter, more tempestuous House of Representatives.)

More appropriate would be to allow Edelman his moment to quietly reflect on the miracle that he accomplished in becoming the receiver that Tom Brady looked for in the difficult moments. Even his example, Josh Cribbs, also a Kent State quarterback who became one of the greatest return men and overall special-team players in National Football League history for the Cleveland Browns, was unable to do what Edelman did.

Those comparisons should come later. This is a time for even his Hall of Fame skeptics to salute Edelman. That, of course, would require sacrifice on their part. They would have to forego an immediate story line and exercise the patience of responsible critical thinkers. That is what I will attempt to do—though it is obvious where I will come down.

Before Edelman goes through his waiting period and then faces his judgment for the Hall of Fame some are consigning him to a lower level of consideration, though one for which I have great respect. In fact, I am a member of the organization that created—the Professional Football Researchers Association—the Hall of Very Good. In 2002, PFRA founder Bob Carroll conceived the Hall of Very Good and pushed it through and ahead in order to honor those like Cleveland linebacker Clay Matthews. In his final year of consideration, Hall of Fame electors bypassed Matthews—again. The only path into a building, where I am convinced his bust belongs, is if the Hall’s Seniors Committee dusts one off for him from a slush pile of the deserving whose careers lie moldering.

Carroll, who died in 2009 on the very day a new Class of the Hall of Very Good was revealed, wanted to do something to honor outstanding players who have not been voted into the Hall of Fame and are unlikely to be. Though after years of eligibility that is now Matthews only remaining slim chance and the PFRA should be saluted for adding its thumb to the late scale of justice, I have refrained from previously suggesting Matthews for the Hall of Very Good. This should not be considered a slight of the PFRA. Far from it. My hesitancy stems from covering Matthews for years as a columnist and believing that he is better than very good. What he lacks in some minds, as do others who have been bypassed, are comparative statistics and other baubles—number of Pro Bowls or All-Pro selection—of those who have been chosen for the Hall of Fame.

When Edelman faces the evaluation process and Matthews comes to terms with the fact that he may never be fully recognized for his great versatility, it will become obvious that in these judgments the past is all that matters. If Faulkner were right, others would  be more clear-eyed about nuances of greatness and breathe life into Matthew’s cold hope and to see that Edelman does not one day have to depend on such resuscitation. Otherwise, their solace will have to be the Hall of Very Good.

Bob Carroll, whom I did not know, demonstrated great vision by creating the Hall of Very Good. Though it is reward in itself, the Hall of Very Good could also be considered a not-quite-there-yet purgatory. When begun, the thought was that if one of the Very Good members were to ascend to Hall of Fame and get his Gold Jacket, football’s equivalent of a halo, his name would be struck from the Hall of Very Good roles.

I do not believe it simply fortuitous that some of those honored by professional football researchers—these people who deserve as much stature and recognition as any football writer in America—have become bright lights shining from the football-domed Hall of Fame. Neither apparently does the PFRA. Rather than eliminate the names of those who ascend to the Hall of Fame, the PFRA decided instead to give them an asterisk to denote not tarnished but even greater accomplishment. Among 157 Hall of Very Good inductees as of 2020, 27 now bear such asterisks for their grand pasts.