John McClain served on the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee for over 30 years. That run ended this month after the Hall overhauled its selection process, reducing the Selection Committee from 50 members to 28. McClain confirmed the news himself in a post on X, and the decision has quickly drawn criticism from voters and fans who saw him as one of the committee’s most trusted voices.
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“It was a privilege serving on the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee and representing Houston, the Oilers and Texans, but I was told I didn’t make the cut from 50 to 28, including 3 non-voting members, under the new bylaws. Among the changes, no city or team will have a representative, and no more individual presentations for finalists will be made. Thank you to the Hall of Fame for having me as a small part of the process for more than 3 decades,” John McClain posted on X.
Hall president Jim Porter has described the shakeup as a way to root out “unintended biases” in how candidates get voted in. And to be fair, the new system does look different on paper.
The Hall is shrinking its selection committee from 50 people to 28. Of those, 25 will vote each year, while the other 3 will only take part in candidate discussions, not the actual voting. Those three non-voting spots will rotate every year.
Previously, each of the 32 NFL teams had its own representative on the committee, alongside 17 at-large voters and one representative from the Pro Football Writers of America. Under the new system, team representation is gone entirely. Instead, there will be 27 at-large members and one PFWA representative.
The changes come months after the uproar over Bill Belichick missing the cut in his first year of eligibility, but the Hall says its broader review of the selection process began 2½ years ago.
Whatever the reasoning be, nothing makes it easier to swallow when you look at who got caught up in it. McClain isn’t just some name on a roster. The guy spent 47 years at the Houston Chronicle and put in another 24 at SportsRadio 610 before being laid off there in 2024. He held his Hall of Fame committee seat for 33 years.
That’s long enough to have personally introduced the cases for Oilers legends like Elvin Bethea, Robert Brazile, and Bruce Matthews, plus Andre Johnson and Chuck Howley. This is someone whose fingerprints are all over multiple Canton inductions.
The Hall still hasn’t said exactly how it decided who stayed and who got cut from the committee. McClain, for his part, hasn’t lashed out publicly. He’s taken it about as gracefully as anyone could. But not everyone else is taking it as calmly.
Terry Blount, a career sports journalist who spent years at ESPN, the Dallas Morning News, and both Houston papers, didn’t hold back.
“This is an outrageously bad decision by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. John McClain is one of the most respected NFL reporters in history. He is a Houston legend. I owe a great deal of my career success to this kind and generous man. His entire career has been about fairness,” he wrote.
Lance Zierlein, a longtime Houston sports-radio personality and NFL.com draft analyst, was similarly blunt.
“Absolutely nobody on earth advocated for players he felt were deserving of a Hall of Fame nod more than. Absolutely went to war for players,” he posted.
Mark Berman, the former sports director at Fox 26 in Houston, wasn’t interested in being diplomatic either.
“McClain is being incredibly classy while taking the high road. I’m certainly not obligated to do that and won’t,” he said. “What a dumb, stupid, ridiculous move by those involved with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee.”
And Doug Farrar, a longtime NFL writer, summed up what a lot of people in the business seem to be feeling.
“I do not understand this at all. Nobody I know has a better understanding of pro football history than John. This is a big mistake,” Farrar wrote.
“Not having John remain on the committee is a horrendous decision. Nobody knows more about the history of the game,” Matt Verderame also chimed in.
Whatever the new system ultimately produces, one thing is already clear: it marks the end of McClain’s 33-year run on the Hall of Fame’s Selection Committee, where he presented the cases for eight players who eventually reached Canton.