Boselli leads class of eight Pro Football Hall of Famers

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The long wait to be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame is finally over for several deserving candidates.

In a year with no sure-fire first-ballot candidates, the panel of voters opted to choose five players who have waited years — or even decades — for the honor with offensive lineman Tony Boselli, linebacker Sam Mills, defensive back LeRoy Butler, and defensive linemen Bryant Young and Richard Seymour all getting the nod in results announced Thursday night.

The five had all come up short as finalists in previous years and been out of the game for between the last nine and 24 seasons but that didn’t diminish their remarkable accomplishments that will send them to Canton for induction this summer.

Three others who also have endured long waits were voted in by the panel with former Raiders speedster Cliff Branch getting in as the senior candidate, Super Bowl winner Dick Vermeil in the coach category and longtime head of officiating Art McNally as a contributor.

Mills was in his final year of eligibility and the diminutive linebacker who starred for New Orleans and Carolina after beginning his career in the USFL got voted in nearly 17 years after he died of cancer at age 45.

Mills packed plenty into his 5-foot-9 frame over his 12 seasons in the NFL. He became a key cog on elite defenses in New Orleans that helped the Saints shake their rough early history and then helped build the expansion Panthers into a contender when he arrived there in 1995.

Mills retired following the 1997 season and began coaching in Carolina and inspired the team’s Super Bowl run in 2003 with his mantra to “keep pounding” during his battle with intestinal cancer.

It took Boselli until his 16th year of eligibility and sixth