Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and former commissioner Paul Tagliabue are candidates for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2017, as finalists of the still-fairly-new contributors’ committee. This is only the third year that non-playing and non-coaching contributors have had a separate selection, and it fixed one of the Hall’s long-lasting problems: recognizing significant owners, executives and the like without pitting them against the player candidates every year.
It’s noble, and it got 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo into Canton this year, and championship-winning general managers Ron Wolf and Bill Polian in previously. The committee set the bar high at the outset.