It is going to be a very interesting year for the Hall of Fame Class announcement due to the abundance of great players eligible. The Raiders have been known to get passed over time and time again when it comes to their all time greats making the Hall so hopefully that trend wont continue today.

Of the 15 finalists for this year 3 of them are Wide Receivers which is really going to hurt Tim Brown's chances of getting inducted. Chris Carter is one of the only WR's to ever play that has better stats than Tim and he is one of the other finalists this year. The other WR finalist is Andre Reed who was a great wideout himself although not quite at the level of Brown and Carter.

I was looking at ProFootballHOF.com and they have some nice articles on there comparing the current finalists to other inducted members of the Hall of Fame. They have comparison charts to see if the numbers for their current candidates match up with the inductees that they already have. When looking at this chart its clear that Tim Brown and Chris Carter both distanced themselves from much of the other Hall of Fame Wide Receivers.

RECEIVING HONORS

Player Yrs. No. Yds. Avg. TD All-Pro Pro Bowls

TIM BROWN 17 1,094 14,934 13.7 100 2** 9

CRIS CARTER 16 1,101 13,899 12.6 130 2 8

ANDRE REED 16 951 13,198 13.9 87 0 7

HOF WRs

Lance Alworth 11 542 10,266 18.9 85 7 7

Raymond Berry 13 631 9,275 14.7 68 3 5

Fred Biletnikoff 14 589 8,974 15.2 76 2 6

Tom Fears 9 400 5,397 13.5 38 2 1

Bob Hayes 11 371 7,414 20.0 71 3 3

Elroy Hirsch* 12 387 7,029 18.2 60 2 3

Michael Irvin 12 750 11,904 15.9 65 1 5

Charlie Joiner 18 750 12,146 16.2 65 1 3

Steve Largent 14 819 13,089 16.0 100 3 7

Dante Lavelli* 11 386 6,488 16.8 62 4 3

James Lofton 16 764 14,004 18.3 75 4 8

Don Maynard 15 633 11,834 18.7 88 2 4

Tommy McDonald 12 495 8,410 17.0 84 1 6

Bobby Mitchell 11 521 7,954 15.3 65 3 4

Art Monk 16 940 12,721 13.5 68 2 3

Pete Pihos 9 373 5,619 15.1 61 6 6

Jerry Rice 20 1,549 22,895 14.8 194 11 13

John Stallworth 14 537 8,723 16.2 63 1 4

Lynn Swann 9 336 5,462 16.3 51 3 3

Charley Taylor 13 649 9,110 14.0 79 1 8

Paul Warfield 13 427 8,565 20.1 85 6 8

It will be a shame if Tim Brown doesn't make it in but it will be even more of a shame if neither Timmy or Chris Carter make it in this year. They both deserve it heavily and as long as they are both on the ballot they are stealing each other's votes, which is causing neither to be inducted. We will all find out soon enough as the announcements on this year's inductees will be made later today.