KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The majestic Otis Taylor retired from the Chiefs in 1975, and, alas, has been bedridden and on a feeding tube for well over a decade now. But even out of public view, a half-century after his heyday, he remains ever-visible in Kansas City when it comes to his tremendous case to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Many fans still wonder, if not exactly hope, this one day will change. Taylor was such a vital player in a then-revolutionary offense, a receiver whose statistics and presence were transcendent in the context of the era.
Even as recently as the last few years, a group from his alma mater, Prairie View A&M, has sought to rekindle support and find new avenues for compelling back to shore a ship that appears to have sailed away.
While Taylor has the most high-profile and perhaps most substantial argument among former Chiefs, he's not alone when it comes to terrific players of yesteryear whose Hall of Fame prospects Chiefs' followers have asked about since I was privileged to join the 49-person PFHOF selection committee last August.
What about guard Ed Budde, who retired in 1976 after being a crucial force in franchise history who was selected to the all-time all-AFL team? Or tackle Jim Tyrer, who was absolutely dominant?
(While Hall of Fame bylaws state that off-field matters aren't to be considered, and while we can understand now that CTE may have been a contributing factor, any discussion of Tyrer's case can't ignore his shocking murder of his wife and subsequent suicide.)
More recently, there's safety Deron Cherry, a superb player who had 50 career interceptions and was voted to the 1980s all-decade second team by the PFHOF.
Each of the aforementioned four are in the Professional Football Researchers Association's "Hall of Very Good," which since 2002 has sought to "honor outstanding players who are not in the Hall of Fame" while also hoping to bolster some of the cases. Indeed, a number of them later were inducted in Canton.
But those four, and other prominent former Chiefs whose careers ended at last 25 years ago and perhaps merit further consideration (Fred Arbanas? Jim Lynch? Not to mention pioneering scout Lloyd Wells, who would fall under the separate category of "contributor"), aren't merely just on the outside looking in.
They reside in what's become known among the Hall of Fame's nine-member senior committee as "the abyss" — where the worthy causes of dozens and dozens and dozens of former stars are largely left to languish with only one a year eligible for induction under current procedures.
Emphasis on "current procedures."
Because new Hall of Fame president Jim Porter, still in his first few months on the job, has been eager to hear the voice of voters hoping to expand the annual pool beyond what is the Hall's rule until the Class of 2025.
That topic was much of the thrust for a 90-minute-plus Zoom meeting on Thursday, during which there was robust and thoughtful discussion about those possibilities among other matters. The conversation is confidential, but Porter afterward said the broader point was appropriate to make public.
"I think it's important that those who deserve to be in the Hall of Fame get in the Hall of Fame and are not passed by because of lack of knowledge as years go by," Porter said in a phone interview after the meeting.
That mindset potentially could lead to some changes in the months to come that should help alleviate the gridlock. Which would be great.
Especially because the backlog is vast ... and certainly extends around the NFL.
Former Kansas City Star reporter Rick Gosselin, who has been a Hall of Fame voter for 27 years, is a member of the senior committee with an active interest in the broader landscape.
In a phone conversation on Wednesday, he was quickly able to lend succinct but considerable perspective to the challenge as it is.
Gosselin maintains a list of some 108 senior candidates (inevitably to keep growing) that he believes had careers worthy of discussion for the Hall of Fame.
Every year, though, any working list of the committee gets reduced to 15 for deeper scrutiny that leads to just one player recommended nominated to the full board of electors.
Which means ...
Of that 108 as it stands now, Gosselin said, 86 have never been discussed as finalists.
Of that 108, there are 58 first-and-second-team all-decade players who've never reached that discussion stage.
Virtually every franchise, Gosselin noted, likely has three to five senior players it believes have been overlooked.
Moreover, as he wrote for the Talk of Fame Network last year:
"Former Green Bay wide receiver Lavvie Dilweg was voted first-team all-decade for the 1920s. He set all the NFL receiving records before Hall of Famer Don Hutson. His wait for a bust is at 83 years now and counting.
"There are two other players in the senior pool who were named to the NFL's 50th anniversary team, tight end Ron Kramer and wide receiver Boyd Dowler, both of the Green Bay Packers. Neither has ever been a finalist for the Hall of Fame. Both deserve that discussion."
And so on, including Tyrer being one of three players in the senior pool who went to nine Pro Bowls and was a finalist once. And Budde being one of three in the senior pool who went to eight Pro Bowls and never has been discussed as a finalist.
The climb hasn't been impossible for former Chiefs. Johnny Robinson, you'll remember, was inducted from the senior pool in 2019 ... 48 years after his retirement.
It's a steep route to ascend, though. And considering how complicated it is to deliberate even among modern players, making up that ground at a better pace with all due scrutiny would be a daunting task.
Still, we should all hope that changes can be made.
That would open up the possibilities for so many who are so deserving but for one reason or another weren't adequately appreciated in their time ... and thus have been relegated to a place that's hard to escape.
