Mike Shanahan & Dan Reeves Snubbed by Hall of Fame Voters
The trifecta is complete.
After learning that legendary linebacker Randy Gradishar failed to make it out of the semi-finals, Denver Broncos fans were dealt a triple blow by the news on Wednesday that neither Mike Shanahan nor Dan Reeves were selected as finalists by the Pro Football Hall of Fame voters' coaches/contributor committee.
It's very disappointing news but not surprising. For decades, the Broncos were perennial snubs by the Hall of Fame voters.
That trend seemingly ended in recent years, with worthy, long-suffering candidates like Terrell Davis, Pat Bowlen, and Steve Atwater getting in, peppered with no-brainer, first-ballot guys like Champ Bailey and Peyton Manning.
But the old anxieties and outsider feelings returned with gusto when a sure-fire Hall-of-Fame head coach like Shanahan is passed over on his first go-round. The voters instead opted for former San Diego Chargers head coach Don Coryell — a deserving candidate in his own right — but objectively not even close to Shanahan's level of NFL accomplishment.
One can point to the 'Air Coryell' scheme that blossomed in San Diego and how that impacted NFL passing offenses of the 1980s, but, in case you missed it, Shanahan's vaunted zone blocking scheme, built on the bones of the West Coast Offense, not only produced individual and team success, but it changed the league in a lasting and abiding way.
Shanahan's zone scheme is not only being implemented by Denver's new head coach Nathaniel Hackett, but by the Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams, and, of course, Mike's son Kyle in San Francisco. It's literally the flavor of the day, bringing home even more hardware by way of Sean McVay's triumph in the Super Bowl earlier this year.
Throw in the Cincinnati Bengals, Minnesota Vikings, and others, and the seeds of Shanahan's schematic genesis have literally taken root across the NFL landscape. That's talking about the modern NFL.
You can't tell the NFL story of the 1990s without including Shanahan's back-to-back World Champion Broncos, quarterbacked by Hall-of-Fame QB John Elway. I understand that Hall of Fame voters are reluctant to anoint any candidate whose team hasn't inducted him into its respective Ring of Fame, but the Broncos finally took care of that conspicuous piece of unfinished business last fall with Shanahan.
As for Reeves, I'd even argue that his resume is stronger than Coryell's. Reeves led his teams to four Super Bowl berths, including three-out-of-four years in the late 1980s. Then he became one of a small handful of head coaches to lead another team to the Super Bowl when Reeves' Atlanta Falcons advanced to Super Bowl XXXIII, only to be trounced by Shanahan's Broncos.
If Marv Levy, who led the Buffalo Bills to four straight Super Bowls, but failed to win even one, could make it through the attrition of the Hall of Fame voting process, Reeves should, too. Alas, Reeves passed away in January of 2022, so if he ever makes it through the Hall of Fame gauntlet, he'll have to be inducted posthumously, like Pat Bowlen.
As we inch ever farther into the future, Broncos Country is now forced to worry that worthy legends like Gradishar, who's getting up there in years, will ever get his due from the Hall of Fame voters, and if so, that it'll also come posthumously.
For what it's worth, I don't think fans should worry too much about Shanahan. There's no reason to bar him from enshrinement long-term, but Broncos fans know how these things typically go, especially for any worthy candidate not-named Elway from the Super Bowl XXXII and XXXIII champion teams.
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