7-Time All-Pro G Steve Hutchinson Talks Pro Football Hall of Fame with Rich

Steve Hutchinson knows exactly how long the wait feels, because the Hall of Fame put him through it twice before it worked.

The Canton class of 2020 member, a 12-year veteran, seven-time Pro Bowler and five-time first-team All-Pro out of Michigan, Seattle and Minnesota, got in on his third try. He also happened to be staying on the 15th floor of the hotel the year it finally happened, which nearly ruined the whole thing.

Back then the Hall knocked on doors in person and called the players who missed. David Baker started at the bottom floors and worked his way up, staggering the announcements so nobody had to hear a family celebrating next door.

"I've gone through it twice knowing the longer you wait, the better chance you're not going to make it, because they do the calls after the knocks," Hutchinson told Rich. "So it was getting pretty late. I'm looking at the clock, and I'm like, all right, this is not a good sign."

Then the knock came.

His class found out a different way, at the Super Bowl, the last year before COVID. The finalists were brought down by elevator to one of two buses. Hutchinson called it the loser bus and the other one.

"You almost have to appreciate going through it and not making it before you can really appreciate making it," he said. "I always joke with the first ballot guys, I'm like, well, you don't know what it's like to have to go through it and not make it."

He is not alone in that. Hutchinson pointed to Andre Reed waiting nine years and John Lynch waiting, and Rich brought up Harry Carson, who got so fed up he asked to be taken off the list entirely, then flew to Hawaii on announcement day and landed to a phone full of messages telling him he was in.

Friday found Hutchinson slipping out of the Ray Nitschke luncheon to talk, which is the most closely guarded room of the weekend. Hall of Famers only. Even the Hall's president is not allowed in. The only other people in the room are the catering staff.

Cris Carter runs the microphone now, working it around so the incoming class hears from every era, from recent inductees back to the Willie Laniers and Bobby Bells. Bell, by Hutchinson's count, is on his 43rd straight enshrinement without missing one.

The message being delivered is not complicated. Different rules, different money, different eras, same team now.

"You can't get cut, traded," Hutchinson said, repeating a line he attributes to one of the old guard. "Even when you die, you're still on this team."

Hutchinson also has a firm answer to the newer tradition of choosing a returning Hall of Famer to put your jacket on. It would have to be an offensive lineman. Bruce Matthews, Randall McDaniel, someone from that group.

He is watching Larry Fitzgerald get his from Cris Carter with more context than most, having played in Minnesota. Fitzgerald was the ball boy, his father covered the team, and now the man he fetched footballs for is putting a gold jacket on his shoulders.

As for the returning-Hall-of-Famer experience, Hutchinson compares enshrinement weekend to your own wedding. It is for everybody else. You worry about grandma's ticket and the hotel rooms and whether anyone can get in.

Come back the next year and it is somebody else's wedding. You go right to the bar.

He is also about 100 pounds down from his playing weight, sitting in the upper 220s. The body, he said, enjoys it.