Turney: Stacking Favorites for Hall’s Class of 2023 Coach/Contributor Pick -

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(EDITOR’S NOTE: To listen to John Turney, click on the following link: Ep 119: Senior Class Finalists Announced; John Turney Joins The Show (spreaker.com)

The Pro Football Hall-of-Fame’s coach/contributor committee meets Tuesday to choose a candidate for the Class of 2023, and NFL historian John Turney knows which of the 12 finalists he’d choose.

Buddy Parker.

The former Detroit and Pittsburgh head coach was a runner-up to Tom Flores in 2021 and again to Dick Vermeil a year later. Logic says he should be in the on-deck circle. Turney, however, does not.

“My prediction,” he said on the latest “Eye Test for Two” podcast,” is that it will be Robert Kraft. That’s just my gut feeling.”

The New England owner pushed Art McNally and Ralph Hay a year ago when there were separate coach and contributor categories. But it was McNally, not Kraft or Hay, who was chosen as the Class of 2022 contributor candidate.

With Hay not among this year’s finalists for a combined category, Kraft has momentum entering Tuesday’s vote – enough, Turney believes, to carry the room.

“I just think it was always a matter of time,” said Turney.” This is kind of a frank opinion, but I think that Robert Kraft would already be in had he not gotten into a little bit of legal trouble a few years ago (January, 2019). I think that’s past enough that Robert Kraft will have just enough support that it will take him over the top.

“It’s not who I would pick, and it’s not what I want. But (sometimes) a prediction and what you want don’t meet.”

The contributor category was created with the Class of 2015, and three of its first seven inductees were owners (Eddie DeBartolo, Jerry Jones and Pat Bowlen). But since Bowlen’s induction in 2019, there have been no owners among the past five contributor nominees (including three for the Centennial Class of 2020), all of whom were enshrined.

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Parker, meanwhile, is one of six coaches under consideration Tuesday. The others are Clark Shaughnessy, Don Coryell, Mike Holmgren, Mike Shanahan and Dan Reeves. Turney said if, given the chance, he would vote Parker, Coryell and Shaughnessy, in that order.

Parker won back-to-back NFL championships with Detroit (1952-53) and lost in the 1954 title game to Cleveland. In six seasons with Detroit, he won over 67 percent of his games (47-23-1) before leaving for Pittsburgh. There, he assumed control of a club that hadn’t had a winning season in five years and made it competitive – finishing with a 51-47-6 record in eight years.

He retired after the 1964 season and never coached again.

“I would have to put Buddy Parker first,” Turney said. “He won a pair of NFL titles – they didn’t call them Super Bowls back in the ‘50s – but he also turned around a Steelers’ team which was not very good for a long time.

“He also was an innovator as a defensive coach. H doesn’t get a lot of credit for that, but in the time that he coached he was like Paul Brown in that he was ahead of the game (and) had his own defensive scheme. Very interesting stuff.

“So, with the two titles, I think that’s what should put him over the top, (or) at least, put him at the head of the queue of the other coaches who have two wins … and some of those can’t get any traction.

“George Seifert has a couple of (Super Bowl) wins, and, of course, Mike Shanahan has a couple of wins, but they got hurt by their second acts. Buddy Parker‘s second act with the Steelers was pretty darn good, given the talent he had to work with there.”

The Hall’s coach/contributor committee is scheduled to meet virtually at 11 a.m. (Eastern) Tuesday. Unlike last week’s senior committee, the group will choose only one candidate for the Class of 2023 – with an announcement Wednesday.