Clips of Senior's Committee Semifinalist Al Wistert

 By John Turney 

When "The Hidden Game of Football" was released in 1988 authors Bob Carroll, Pete Palmer and John Thorn changed the way many folks looked at football. Some of their ideas are still used to this day in terms of discussing analytics and metrics.

Each author contributed different parts with Palmer and Thorn mostly discussing the analytics and Carrool, of course contributing, but Carroll did a lot of the narrative.

He had one chapter entitled "Ramblings in the Pantheon" where he discussed Hall of Fame candidates and applied some of the legendary Bill James's methods of comparing players in and out of the Hall. 

Among the players he discussed most was Al Wistert, a tackle who played for the Eagles in the 1940s and early 1950s. 

Wistert was a longtime starter, five-time All-Pro, played on two championship teams, blocked for the player who ended his career as the NFL's all-time leading rusher (Steve Van Buren), was picked All-Decade and had some testimonials from great players who thought he was top-notch and he also played on record-setting teams. 

Still, Wistert wasn't in the Hall of Fame then and is still not. 

He was one of the Final 20 of the 2020 Centennial Class but was eliminated in the first reduction vote. It has been suggested that Wistert's film was not evaluated highly by one or more members of the Blue-Ribbon panel that did the voting. However, to be fair, since we were not present it is not known what and how that opinion was conveyed. All we know he Wistert fell a bit short.

Last year he was not on the Senior's Committee semifinalist list but he is on it this year -- one of the 31 names that have a chance to move on to the Final 12. The senior committee will then meet and discuss those twelve and cut six of them. Then they will cut to three. Those three will be presented to the Hall of Fame voters as a whole and be voted in or not. 

His case has been made many times in terms of the stats, the postseason honors, the championships and the rest of his credentials.

To shed some light here are some clips of Wistert in action. Wistert is No. 70. He's the left tackle on offense and the right defensive tackle on defense. In that era what they called "tackles" would be considered ends today. The same is true for players like HOFer Arnie Weinmeister

Wistert on the right edge, a de facto outside linebacker

A nice tackle for loss, Wistert gets in front of the single-wing 

lead blocker to make tackle

Wistert, lined up on the left tackle keeps outside leverage

and strings out the play and is in on the tackle

Wistert, in a two-point stance, shoots the gap

and closes on the ball, in on the tackle

In that era, linemen cut defenders a lot. It was

simply standard.  Neither of the above two plays

are big gainers but they are solid runs and 

good blocks by Wistert made them so.

A short set in pass protection.

This is 1946. Wistert a two-point stance as a tackle

follows the motioning halfback on his side 

man to man. This is something that was not

just a gimmick—it was part of the game plan.

Wistert takes No. 98 LHB Tom Harmon who motions

to the right flat. Hard to see but he stays with

Harmon and Kenny Washington throws the ball elsewhere

Wistert, #70 right tackle gets out in front and seals 

the far edge on a right-side screen

Obviously, you cannot get a complete sense of someone's career from just a few clips but you can get some idea of the player they were. In seeing more than a few full games of the Eagles from that era there is nothing we can see to suggest the All-Pro voters were wrong, or that George Allen (who called him one of the best linemen ever), or Sammy Baugh (named him to his personal all-time team) were also wrong. 

Of the 31 players on the semifinalist list, no one has more first-team All-Pros than Wistert. Only two have more rings than he does.

It would be terrific if the voters would use one of the three slots for a super senior, and the other two for more recent players. It seems only fair that if you go by traditional standards for what a Hall of Famer is he's qualified notwithstanding what may or may not have been said a few years ago in the Centennial Class meeting.