There's no perfect way to elect someone to a hall of fame and at the same time reject others.

Voting in the Pro Football Hall of Fame may be the most difficult of all because while there are statistics for receivers, running backs and quarterbacks, there are none for offensive linemen and few good ones for defensive players.

Voters must rely many times on the word of others who either played with or against players, or who saw them play much of their career. Even then, it's tough to determine because teammates and even opponents will say anything to help a player's candidacy.

Common sense should take over at some point with these candidates, and it has not happened in the most recent voting.

Steve Tasker made it among the 26 semifinalists and Donnie Shell did not.

Both were great special teams players with one difference -- Shell graduated to become one of the great strong safeties in the NFL. Tasker remained strictly a special teams player. He could not even start for his own teams -- yet voters thought more of him for the Hall of Fame than they did Shell.

Shell started 161 games in a 14-year career that ended after the 1987 season. Tasker started 10 games in a 13-year career that ended after the 1997 season. Shell's 51 interceptions were more than any strong safety when he retired. Tasker, listed as a wide receiver, caught 51 passes in his career and ran for 130 yards.

Maybe voters grew tired of seeing Shell's name among the finalists all the time, or maybe they've grown tired of seeing so many Steelers elected. Tasker was a great special teams player, but there's no special wing in Canton for that. If so, they should also create one for the great long snappers. Induction is supposed to be for the truly great players and Tasker could not even start for his own teams!

Shell likely won't make it into the Hall; his best chances came about 10 years ago when he often was a finalist. Tasker won't make it either. But merely putting Tasker ahead of Shell at this point in the game is an injustice.

On another Pro Football Hall of Fame matter: Its board of directors voted to make a coach wait five years after his retirement before he becomes an eligible candidate. That's why Bill Cowher and Bill Parcells, to name two, were not on the list this year.

Parcells was a finalist a few times before he returned to coaching. Parcells promised at the time he was not getting back into coaching and people tried to make that point, but he still fell short of the votes needed for election.

The concern by voters always was that a coach's record should be complete before he's considered for election. What's happening to Joe Gibbs is a good example. Gibbs probably would have been elected even after his second stint with the Redskins because he coached three Super Bowl winners. But his comeback sure has not enhanced his resume.

Joe Gibbs figures into yet another item: They should take the timeout calls away from the coaches.

It's a new rule and it's polluting the game, and it's exposing some coaches as the control-freak lunatics they are. Before the new rule, timeouts had to be called by the players (just as in the really old days when the plays were called by the players).

Now, coaches can request them from the sideline. It's why there are so many timeouts being called before field goal kicks. It rarely happened when only the players could call timeouts. It's almost as frustrating as watching the final two minutes of a basketball game with all the timeouts and intentional fouls.

Before the past week, all those last-second, pre-field goal timeouts were merely annoying. Then along came Gibbs and Rex Ryan.

Gibbs not only called the cliche timeout just before a Buffalo field goal attempt, he did it twice. Oops, that's a 15-yard penalty and a re-kick from 36 yards. It was good, the Bills won and the Hall of Fame coach looked like a dummy.

Then along came Ryan. Baltimore had the New England Patriots beaten. They had just stopped Tom Brady on a quarterback sneak on fourth-and-1 on the Patriots' final drive. Game over, Baltimore wins. But wait! Ryan had called a timeout from the sideline a split second before the snap.

Never mind that timeouts only are permitted to be called from the sideline by the head coach. Ryan called it and the official granted it to him because he had no time to look over his shoulder to determine which coach called it.

Naturally, the Patriots went on to convert on fourth down and to pull out a victory.

Please, please, someone take the lollipops away from the coaches.

Steelers players and coaches can downplay Anthony Smith's statements this week all the want, but we know better.

Smith not only guaranteed a Steelers victory over the Patriots, he said their receivers have never been hit as hard as they will be hit today and that they aren't even as good as the Bengals' receivers.

Deep down, Mike Tomlin has to be seething over that. It's not just high schools that have bulletin boards for material.

In Bill Cowher's time, the story would be blown up, the comment outlined in yellow and pasted on the board for all to see as they entered the locker room.

Bill Belichick is known as a coach who does the same thing.