Pro Football Hall of Fame reveals 2025 finalists as one nominee ignites controversy 44 years after tragedy

Legendary Green Bay Packers receiver Sterling Sharpe and his former head coach Mike Holmgren are among the 2025 finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but this time there’s a much more controversial name on the ballot.

Nominated in the Senior category for players whose careers ended before 1999, former Kansas City Chiefs left tackle. Tyrer was a six-time All-Pro and a member of the AFL all-decade team for the 1960s while protecting quarterback Len Dawson’s blind side. He won three AFL titles and one Super Bowl with the Chiefs franchise before ending his career with Washington in 1974.

Tyrer was considered a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame at the time of his retirement. In fact, every other non-specialist who was a six-time All-Pro and is eligible for the Hall has been inducted.

But shortly after he was first selected as a finalist, Tyrer shot his wife in a murder-suicide in September 1980.

Tyrer had been dealing with depression and severe headaches that experts now believe could be CTE, the degenerative brain disease found in many former NFL players who suffered repeated blows to the head during their careers. CTE can only be diagnosed posthumously.

Tyrer was not voted in that year and was not nominated again until this year.

Brad Tyrer, son of former Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman Jim Tyrer, believes his father suffered from CTE. And it was this condition, Brad says, that led to the 1980 murder-suicide

Since the tragedy, Tyrer’s son Brad and a doctor who treated the former lineman have both spoken out in his defense, insisting the murder-suicide was the result of his football career.

“If it walks like a duck, quacks, has webbed feet and water runs down its back, then it’s not a zebra: It’s CTE,” said Doug Paone, the doctor who treated Tyrer just days before the murder-suicide. against Kansas. City star in 2020.'[Tyrer] would be the poster child for CTE.”

Brad Tyrer insists his father was never violent or even angry until he started struggling with head problems.

“My dad was just a great guy, a great guy; he didn’t swear, he didn’t drink, you never saw him raise his voice at my mom,” Brad said in 2020.” It was just that something snapped. And he wasn’t… It was someone else who did that.’

However, fans were largely against the idea of ​​anchoring Tyrer in Canton. One called the idea the “height of madness.”

“He killed his wife and then committed suicide in 1980,” the fan wrote. “And that’s a Hall of Famer?”

“Jim Tyrer!” another added. “That is not the story the association wanted to present.”

Sharpe was chosen as one of three finalists in the Senior category for players whose careers ended in 1999 or earlier, along with Maxie Baughan and Tyrer, in the voting results announced on Tuesday. Holmgren was selected as the sole finalist in the coaching category and Ralph Hay, who helped found the NFL more than a century ago, was the finalist in the contributor category.

Fans were upset to see Tyrer nominated for the Pro Football Hall of Fame after the 1980 murder

Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre (4) talks with head coach Mike Holmgren as time expires in the NFC Championship Game, a 23-10 win over the San Francisco 49ers in 1998

Green Bay Packers receiver Sterling Sharpe (84) during a 31-22 loss to the Detroit Lions in 1989

Sterling Sharpe has a conversation with Packers head coach Mike Holmgren after a 1994 playoff game

The five will be grouped together for a vote by the full selection committee in January. Voters can choose three of the candidates, meaning up to three can reach the 80% threshold needed for induction. If no one gets 80 percent of the votes, the biggest vote-getter enters the room.

The selection committee will vote separately on 15 modern-era finalists, with the 2025 inductees announced during Super Bowl week in New Orleans in February.

One of Brett Favre’s favorite targets, Sharpe had a short but productive career for the Green Bay Packers from 1988 to 1994. His best season came in 1992, when he became the sixth player to win the receiving triple crown and set an NFL record with 108 catches for 1,461 yards and 13 touchdowns.

Sterling, the brother of Shannon Sharpe’s brother, broke his own record with 112 catches in 1993 and led the NFL with 18 touchdown receptions in his final season, 1994, before a neck injury ended his career.

Sharpe was a three-time All-Pro and had 595 catches for 8,134 yards and 65 touchdowns. He trailed only Jerry Rice in receptions and TD catches during his seven-year career.

Baughan was one of the best linebackers in the game for Philadelphia and the Los Angeles Rams in the 1960s. He helped the Eagles win an NFL title as a rookie in 1960 and made nine Pro Bowls in a ten-year span with one first-team All-Pro selection and five second-team selections.

Sharpe and Baughan were never finalists during their time in the modern era category.

Holmgren was one of the most influential offensive coaches, starting with his time as an assistant on two Super Bowl championship teams in San Francisco.

He went on to coach Green Bay for seven seasons, winning a Super Bowl after the 1996 season. He coached in Seattle for 10 years and finished with a 161-111 record, good for three Super Bowls total.

Holmgren also had a major impact on future coaches, with Andy Reid and Jon Gruden going on to win Super Bowls after working under him in Green Bay.

Hay owned the Canton Bulldogs from 1918 to 2222 and hosted the meeting that led to the formation of the NFL. He defeated a group of semifinalists, including six-time Super Bowl champion owner Robert Kraft.