Cincinnati Bengals legend Ken Anderson is in his team's Ring of Honor, has a league MVP and is a former All-Pro, but is still on the outside looking in to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. There's a new initiative to fix that one missing accolade.
While nobody can go back in time and get Pete Johnson across the goal line in the third quarter or help the Bengals recover an onside kick to give Anderson and the Cincinnati offense a couple more plays to win Super Bowl 16 in the Pontiac Silverdome, you can join the "Kenny for Canton" online initiative, which launched on Oct. 15.
"The Hall is missing an MVP" is the tagline on the site just under Anderson's No. 14 atop the site, which lists all of Anderson's awards, stats and comparisons to his fellow signal
callers who've long been enshrined in Canton, Ohio.
The four-time Pro Bowl quarterback sat down with longtime Enquirer reporter John Erardi in 2024 and had this to say about possibly making the Hall of Fame: “I just hope it happens soon enough where I can enjoy it,” Anderson said. “It should have happened a long time ago for Kenny Riley. His son shouldn’t have to go up there and get it for him. I’ve seen some of the guys have to go up there in a wheelchair. Let me enjoy the golf tournament. Let me enjoy being a Hall of Famer for a few years.” Riley, Anderson's former teammate, was posthumously inducted in 2023 after decades of waiting despite being No. 5 all-time in interceptions and a former All-Pro.
Anderson spent his entire 16-year career with the Bengals after being drafted in the third round of the 1971 NFL Draft.
The road for Anderson to be inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame became more difficult with the new rules for this year's process. There are no longer voting members from each of the NFL's 32 teams and there's also no longer a senior category of which Anderson was a finalist last year. San Francisco 49ers legend Roger Craig was inducted in the 2026 Hall of Fame class from the senior category. Instead, Anderson and all other players will now be in the same group, which will have 13 player finalists. Former players selected to be finalists will then need 80% of the vote from the 25 voting members of the Hall of Fame's revamped 28-member committee.
The 2027 Hall of Fame class will be announced at the NFL Honors before Super Bowl 61.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: New effort underway to get Bengals legend Ken Anderson in Hall of Fame
