Morten Andersen named Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist; Mike Kenn snubbed again

The great Morten Andersen is once again a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, this time for the class of 2017. Unfortunately, former Falcon tackle Mike Kenn is not.

Andersen held the team record for points for a long while until Matt Bryant broke it this year, and he holds the overall NFL record for scoring. He’s also justly famous for having one of the longest careers you can possibly imagine, beginning his kicking duties wayyy back in 1982 and finishing up his career in Atlanta back in 2007. While his accuracy numbers look fairly pedestrian in today’s era of accurate kickers, he was usually better than the majority of his peers in that department, and is clearly one of the better, more distinguished kickers in NFL history. We’ll see if that’s enough to get him into the Hall.

Kenn, meanwhile, did not make the list of finalists yet again. This continues to baffle me, because Kenn has a very strong case for being the best tackle not in the Hall of Fame, and one of the better players who hasn’t gotten into Canton, period. He had legendary durability, was a force for good for the Falcons from 1978 to 1994, and started 251 games over that span. I said last year and will repeat that there probably is not a more deserving Falcon who isn’t in, and I still hold out faint hope that this injustice will be corrected someday.