The announcement of another Pro Football Hall of Fame class has come and gone.

The 2022 inductees are set to be enshrined in about six months, when all this snow, ice and bitterly cold weather we’re now experiencing will have long since been replaced by heat, humidity and long summer nights.

With all that having been said, though, there are still at least three former long-ago Browns who deserve to be in Canton, but are not and may not ever, the way it now appears.

They are left tackle Dick Schafrath, who passed away in 2021 without ever seeing that wrong, righted; wide receiver Gary Collins, who, when we last checked, is, at 81 years young, still working for his son’s landscaping company back in the Reading, Pa. area; and linebacker Clay Matthews, whose youthful looks make it appear as if he could still play at nearly 66 years old.

Matthews and I are about the same age — I am five months older — and he would tell you, as will I, that, at our age, you pick and choose your battles. There’s simply not enough energy left within us to take on every issue that comes down the pike, but at the same time, the issues we do take on, are done so with tremendous passion. We’re not letting go.

And so, as I’ve written, and said, countless times before, there is no question — absolutely no question whatsoever — that Schafrath, Collins and Matthews belong in the Hall.

That’s the Hall of Fame, not the fictional Hall of the Very Good, which was “created” by the great Joe Horrigan, the now-retired former Vice President of Communications and Exhibits at the Hall, for players whose credentials fall just short of being HOF-worthy.

I will continue to beat that drum for as long as it takes, and if the need for drum-beating exceeds my time to do it, then I would hope that someone else takes up the cause as their personal battle.

By Steve King