Cowboys Ring of Honor guard Larry Allen is one of 13 first-year eligible nominees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame's class of 2013.
Allen's 10 Pro Bowl selections are more than any other offensive player in franchise history. He earned an 11th trip in 2006 while finishing his career with the San Francisco 49ers. The seven-time All-Pro won a championship in his second year, as the Cowboys won their third Super Bowl in four years.
Other top first-time nominees include offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden, defensive linemen Warren Sapp and Michael Strahan, defensive back John Lynch and kicker Morten Andersen. The complete list of candidates for the Class of 2013 consists of 127 nominees. From that list the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee will choose 25 candidates who will advance as semifinalist nominees. The list of 25 semifinalist nominees will be announced in late November. That semifinalist list will be further reduced by a mail ballot to 15 modern-era finalists and announced in early January.
The Class of 2013 will be selected from the list of the 15 modern-era finalists plus the two senior nominees (former Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Oilers nose tackle Curley Culp and former Green Bay Packers and Washington Redskins linebacker Dave Robinson) who were selected last month by the Hall of Fame's Senior Selection Committee.
In addition to Allen, 16 other Cowboys players, coaches or contributors are up for induction this year:
QB Drew BledsoeQB Randall CunninghamQB Danny WhiteRB Eddie GeorgeRB Herschel WalkerWR Keyshawn JohnsonWR Jimmy SmithOL Erik WilliamsDL Charles HaleyDL Ed "Too Tall" JonesCB Everson WallsS Darren WoodsonCoach Jimmy JohnsonCoach Bill ParcellsCoach Dan ReevesContributor Gil Brandt
In February, Haley and Parcells made it to the final round of voting, but were not selected for enshrinement in the 2012 class.
The actual voting for the Class of 2013 will be conducted at the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee's annual meeting, which will be held on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013, the day before Super Bowl XLVII at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The election results will be announced at a live announcement show immediately following the meeting. While there is no set number for any class of enshrinees, the selection process by-laws provide that between four and seven new members will be selected.
