I think it comes down to whether Canton is strictly NFL or not. If it is strictly NFL, clearly Flutie did not accomplish enough in the NFL (though I think many Flutie fans would argue that NFL attitudes had something to do with that). But if it is not strictly NFL, then I think there is no doubt that Flutie's dominance in the CFL should make him a shoo-in. Yes, the CFL is a lesser league, for the most part, but it is also a different league, with different rules, that provides an outlet not just for lesser players, but also for players - like Flutie, I would argue - who were not a good fit for the NFL for other reasons.
Arena league? I don't know anything about Arena football, but I can imagine Arena players in the Hof. The bar would have to be a lot higher. But it seems to me that if you had a player who was dominant in Arena football and for whom a case could be made that their reason for not making a major impact in the NFL did not necessarily have to do with insufficient talent, such a player should be considered for Canton.
Surely we can all agree that as great as the NFL is, it is not league were coaches and owners like to experiment. Almost everyone likes to go for the sure thing. When someone does have success with an innovation, you don't see everyone else suddenly innovating. You see everyone imitating the innovation that worked!
If you don't fit the mold in the NFL, they typically can't use you. I'm not saying that as an absolute. It's more of a tendency, but a pretty strong one.
Has there ever been a player who didn't fit the mold as much as Flutie? As long as he's been in football, he's been a kind of running joke for many. That's how much this guy didn't fit the mold. We will never know what he could have done in the NFL in his prime, but what we can say is that even though he was not a good fit in the NFL and even though in most of the situations he was in there was considerable reluctance about committing to him, he did manage to have some success at the beginning of his career and considerably more at the tail end. Obviously, his stint in Buffalo was the high point of his NFL career. Even there he had to struggle against that old reluctance to rely on him, the preference for the guy who fit the mold and he was sliding down the backside of his career, physical skills not quite what they were. His one full year at the helm in SD, he passed for a career high in yards, but there was no doubt that he was a step slower and probably not quite the gun slinger he had once been (not that he ever had a strong arm).
I think it's amazing what Flutie did accomplish in the NFL, despite the way the deck seemed to be stacked against him, and I think there's no way to dismiss the fact that he didn't just star in the CFL, he completely dominated the league while he was there. That alone tells you that he was more of a misplaced talent than an inadequate talent.
