Taking A Look Inside the EXCLUSIVE Pro Football Hall of Fame Luncheon

The Ray Nitschke Luncheon is the one room in Canton that stays shut. Hall of Famers only. The only people inside who do not own a gold jacket are the wait staff and the men going in the next day.

That is by design, and it is why nobody sees what happens in there. Everything else about induction weekend gets documented by somebody with a phone and lands on social media or a network within minutes. Not this. Jim Porter is not even allowed through the door.

Rich asked one of the returning Hall of Famers who was in the room what the lunch was actually like, and the answer went somewhere other than nostalgia.

"It was a ton of fun," he said, describing an afternoon spent sitting down with guys he grew up watching, in a setting that stops feeling like an event and starts feeling like something more familiar. "It feels like you're in a locker room again, and the guys have said for the longest time this is a team you can never get cut from." That team now numbers 387. Age gaps do not matter much once the door closes.

This year, though, it got heavy.

"This one was a tear jerker," came the description, and the details backed it up. There were great speakers and great stories. There were a couple of health scares among the members, though the point was made that those men are doing fine now. The first speaker set the tone by putting the whole thing in perspective, framing what it means to be a Hall of Famer as a last family in the football world and a platform worth using. The verdict on this year: the best one he has ever been a part of.

Mike Singletary went first and held the floor for 20 to 30 minutes, talking about how special the group is, how special the room is, and how much more the members can do outside of it.

Longevity got its own moment. This was the first year the Hall handed out paintings to the men who have been in for 25, 30 and 35 years. Bobby Bell, meanwhile, was there for what was believed to be his 43rd year, having never missed an enshrinement in that span.

What makes the whole thing land is the contrast. These are men who spent careers being the toughest people in any building they walked into, and by the end of the afternoon they were breaking down.

"I just try to absorb it every year, and the gratitude to be in there with the heroes of the game," the Hall of Famer said. He also delivered the number that explains why this one hit differently. It was the most Hall of Famers ever back in one setting at the same time.

One hundred twenty five of them.