John Lynch misses out on Pro Football Hall of Fame, again

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers can’t seem to get the third of their star generation into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. For the third straight year, John Lynch was a finalist but didn’t make the final selection.

Lynch, who is now the San Francisco 49ers’ new general manager, had a stellar career as a safety, but the value of the position as well as the presence of two players from the Bucs’ 2002 defense already in the Hall of Fame have helped stop his ascendance into the Hall of Fame.

Whether Lynch actually deserves to be in the Hall of Fame is somewhat debatable. He did have a very good career, but the Hall of Fame is not the Hall of Very Good — it’s for those players who added something special to the league. Did Lynch do that? His highlight-reel hits certainly suggest so, as do his Pro Bowl appearances and the legend surrounding him.

But Hall of Fame competition is fierce, and they’re not putting in undeserving players ahead of Lynch. Everyone who’s been inducted recently has more than deserved it, and it’s just very, very hard to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Rightly so, I’d say.

On to next year for Lynch.