Yes, George Young Belongs In The Pro Football Hall Of Fame

I have written this before, and now I’m going to write it again. Of course former New York Giants General Manager George Young belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It’s a travesty that 20 years after he left the Giants and nearly 16 years after his death, that Young still has not been enshrined.

Deserving executives Ron Wolf and Bill Polian were enshrined in 2015. Former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. was enshrined in 2016, and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones this time around.

Young, the man who rescued the Giants, is as deserving as any of them. Here is what I wrote a year ago:

Young is the man responsible for turning around a Giants franchise that spent most of the 1960 and ‘70s wandering aimlessly in the NFL wilderness. His impact on the Giants is still felt today. Young helped train Accorsi and hired Reese. He was the GM when Tom Coughlin was an assistant coach with the Giants. His fingerprints remain all over the franchise.

Let’s take nothing away from Wolf and Polian, who deserve to be Hall of Famers. And, yes, I recognize the limits Hall of Fame voters work under. It remains, however, an egregious oversight that Young is not in the Hall.

Unfortunately, it’s possible that his time was so long ago now, and Hall of Fame voting so annually competitive, that this oversight may never be corrected.

All of that still applies today. Young still deserves to be in the Hall. And despite the fact that there is now a contributor’s committee it may never happen.

At least there are some people who now recognize it. DeBartolo did. And for the second consecutive year, Kevin Seifert of ESPN has Young on his list of deserving candidates who should already be Hall of Famers. Here is what he said about Young:

The argument for: After taking over a struggling Giants franchise in 1979, Young spurred a 30-year run of four Super Bowl victories. He promoted Bill Parcells to head coach, drafted quarterback Phil Simms and linebacker Lawrence Taylor and hired his successor (Ernie Accorsi). Young even hired the Giants' current general manager, Jerry Reese, as a scout.

The holdup: There haven't been many enshrinees who were solely executives. The short list includes Jim Finks, Bill Polian and Ron Wolf.

The outlook: The 2014 decision to create a "contributors" committee gives Young and people like him a better chance. Nominations from the committee count separately toward the maximum annual class size.

Hopefully, one day Young will have a bust in Canton. He’s already a Hall of Famer in my book.