Eli Manning was snubbed from a Hall of Fame selection this past week as he joined the list of illustrious former players who didn’t get the nod in their first year of eligibility. This prompted one of the voters, former coach Tony Dungy, to harshly critique his fellow voters. Even Marcellus Wiley echoed Dungy’s sentiments, saying he doesn’t understand why more players aren’t allowed into the Hall.
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“To Tony Dungy’s point, they’re not letting enough in,” Wiley claimed. However, Eli wasn’t the only notable name to be snubbed this past week.
Luke Keuchly, Adam Vinatieri, and Reggie Wayne were other great former players who didn’t crack the 80% threshold required for a selection. Even Torry Holt, a guy with over 13k career receiving yards and a Super Bowl, didn’t make it in. So, what gives?
Well, it’s not completely out of character for the selection committee. It’s been long talked about how hard it is to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. There are glaring omissions from the club. Like another former Giant QB who was a two-time Super Bowl champ, Phil Simms. There’s also the Bengals all-time leading passer, Ken Anderson.
Other notable names left out include Clay Matthews, Hines Ward, Lester Hayes, and Steve Smith Sr., among many others. The Hall of Fame often feels like an exclusive club, and Marcellus Wiley believes it’s all just for show.
On his podcast, Wiley criticized the selection process, arguing that the committee failed in its duty. Wiley talked about how the people who were snubbed this time will have difficulty getting in because there will be a new class of people next year.
“Committee, the same with MVP voters, stop trying to make headlines off of us talking about you. The best job you can do is us not talk about y’all. We don’t want to talk about y’all. We want to talk about the players getting in the hall.”
It indeed feels as though in recent years the selection committees for these awards and achievements have stolen the limelight from the players. Last year, many argued that Christian McCaffrey should’ve won MVP over Lamar Jackson. This year it was Saquon Barkley.
Even Josh Allen winning over Lamar, ironically, was controversial. Now we’re discussing Eli’s snub. It’s a shame that so much of the discussion is crowded with legitimacy over the selection, rather than celebrating the players’ accomplishments.
Wiley continued to push back against what he sees as the Hall of Fame committee faking its exclusivity. He acknowledged that he and other above-average players are fine with not getting in and understands that it can’t be a revolving door. However, he still doesn’t understand why so few players have been selected in recent years.
“Why won’t you let the ones in that deserve to get in? I hate that. That fake exclusivity, it’s like a club.”
Wiley then gave a comedic example of waiting to get into a club, only to get in there and find out nobody is in there partying. But that’s how you make people think it’s good inside, Wiley says. You fake it until you make it.
Eli on the Snub
For Eli, he was okay with the results. He said that in the days leading up to the event, he had a feeling he wasn’t going to get in. It just adds to his career arc of being overlooked. Eli is a two-time Super Bowl champ who beat Tom Brady both times in the Big Game. And both times, the Patriots were favored. So, he’s used to being overlooked and undervalued.
“I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be my night,” Eli told Good Morning Football. “And I understand that. And I’m totally at peace. It’s not going to change my outlook of my career and how I feel about it.”
Eli seems unbothered by the outcome. He even had some jokes to lighten up the situation, saying that he thinks he should get some credit for Jared Allen making it because the DE sacked him so many times. It’s classic Eli. While his brother, Peyton, gets all the props for being the funnier of the two, Eli still has a funny, self-deprecating type of humor that never fails to make us laugh.
