"Hall of Fame? Make that Hall of Puzzlement And Zone Blitz Head Scratching.

"It baffles me," said Dan Fouts, the former San Diego Chargers quarterback and already a Hall member, when he heard 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo was not part of this year's class.

Here's a rule of thumb: It's never a good thing after a Hall of Fame announcement when the discussion -- even amongst Hall of Famers themselves -- is far more about the people who were not selected, rather than those who were.

Saturday here at the Super Bowl site, that was definitely the case. This created a bizarre dynamic, especially with the NFL continuing to glamorize the annual Hall of Fame announcement into sort of a cheesy game show.

Not long ago, the affair was a simple reading of names in a sterile hotel meeting room. Now, it's a whiz-bang live TV production complete with hosts, analysts, highlight films and dramatic elimination "proclamations" -- as the list of 17 finalists is first pared to 10, then to the ultimate list of four to seven people who will be inducted this summer in Canton, Ohio."