There are eight candidates with significant Cowboys ties who made the preliminary cut for the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2009. But seven of them have been on the ballot before and been passed over by the selection committee.
Which brings us to the newcomer.
Safety Darren Woodson brings an impressive resume to the process: five Pro Bowls, three Super Bowl rings and 1,350 tackles, tops in franchise history. But the selection committee tends to overlook those credentials and zero in on his position.
The committee has an obvious distaste for safeties. Paul Krause set a record that likely will never be broken with his 81 career interceptions, yet the committee made him wait 14 years before voting him in. And he was one of the lucky ones.
Krause is one of only seven pure safeties enshrined. The youngest member of the fraternity is Ken Houston, who last played in 1980. No others in the last 28 years. Nine quarterbacks, nine running backs and 14 offensive linemen have been enshrined during that same stretch.
This same Hall of Fame selection committee picked four safeties to the 1980s all-decade team: Joey Browner, Deron Cherry, Nolan Cromwell and Kenny Easley. Not a one has yet reached the finals to be discussed by the full committee.
Johnny Robinson was an all-time All-AFL pick in the 1960s, and Dick Anderson and Cliff Harris were all-decade selections in the 1970s. All have been passed over in the process.
Until there's a change in the voting mindset, Woodson and a handful of other Canton-worthy safeties are going to be caught up in this positional logjam.
