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Brett Favre, Terrell Owens, and Alan Faneca are the first-timers among the 25 Modern Era HOF finalists revealed this week.
Favre is mortal lock to go in on the first ballot. Faneca will probably need to wait a few years since guards seldom go in right away. Owens' big issue is that there is a backlog of WRs waiting to go in. It's started to clear up recently (Cris Carter 2013, Andre Reed 2014, Tim Brown last year) but there still other guys waiting.
Favre will be the first QB enshrinee since 2006, and there's a very good chance at Ken Stabler being elected by the Seniors Committee too. Really can't see 3 QBs going in during the same year, so Warner will need to wait at least another year. I do see Orlando Pace going in to represent the Greatest Show on Turf, and was pretty shocked he wasn't a first ballot guy last year.
If Pace goes in I'm not sure about Torry Holt and/or Isaac Bruce going in at the same time. Probably will end up being Marvin Harrison's year as the voters are strongly encouraged to not factor in off-field stuff. Bound to make for an awkward speech though, which is why Tony Dungy might go in at the same time even if the voters try to elect people from different markets. I'd be surprised to not see a defensive player elected as well, so it might be the year for Kevin Greene to go in as a 10-time finalist.
Eddie DeBartolo Jr. was nominated in the "Contributors" category. It's just a straight up yes or no vote for him and he needs 80% support. Owner of 5 Super Bowl winning teams that had loads of legends on them, and the announcement is happening in San Francisco. Yeah, he's going in.
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