The is a sponsored post from JC Penney and Van Heusen. Vote at www.fanschoice.com.
Late in October I ran a post about the new Fan's Choice program that allowed you to vote on this year's Hall of Fame candidates. While the fan's vote doesn't officially count, it is a publicized way to at least get the fan perspective out there. For those that are unaware of this program, JC Penney and Van Heusen have come up with an option for the fans to voice their opinion on who they would select to be in the Hall of Fame. Recently the NFL announced 25 semi-finalists that include 49ers greats Jerry Rice, Roger Craig and Charles Haley.
It's actually rather interesting to compare that list with the Fan's Choice. 11 players selected by the fans did not appear in the official 25. The official list is in alphabetical order, while the Fan's Choice list (after the jump) is listed by # of votes received. That total is continually updating, so by the time you head over it may have changed. At this point we can only vote on the top 25 players. The only guys with significant time with the 49ers in the top 25 are Jerry Rice and Charles Haley (no Roger Craig unfortunately). Other players with some 49ers time are Jim Plunkett, Richard Dent and Kevin Greene. What I find particular interesting about the list is that six of the top seven spent at least some portion of their career with the Raiders, with five of them probably being most well known as Raiders.
1. Jerry Rice, WR - 31,301
2. Ray Guy, P - 29,310
3. Tim Brown, WR - 28134
4. Emmitt Smith, RB - 27,002
5. Jim Plunkett, QB - 23,369
6. Lester Hayes, DB - 20,379
7. Cliff Branch, WR - 19,895
8. Chris Carter, WR - 18,382
9. Tom Flores, Head Coach - 18,310
10. Todd Christensen, TE - 17,373
11. Shannon Sharpe, TE - 17,212
12. Otho Davis, Athletic Trainer - 10,120
13. Richard Dent, DL - 9,848
14. Charles Haley, DL - 8,124
15. Randall Cunningham, QB - 7,158
16. Phil Simms, QB - 7,031
17. Steve Atwater, DB - 6,252
18. Andre Reed, WR - 5,442
19. Ed "Too Tall" Jones, DL - 4,781
20. Joe Theismann, QB - 4,777
21. John Randle, DL - 4,156
22. Sterling Sharpe, WR - 4,107
23. Steve Tasker, Special Teams - 3,814
24. Kevin Greene, LB - 3,594
25. Jim Tunney, Contributor - 3,132