NEW ORLEANS — It's fair to be disappointed that Luke Kuechly and Steve Smith Sr. weren't inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last night because it's disappointing.

But it's also important to remember why they weren't.

It's not because they play for the small-market Panthers, because Carolina fans have made two trips to Canton in the previous three classes to see Sam Mills and Julius Peppers enshrined. Also, this year's class is made up of a Green Bay Packer, a Philadelphia Eagle, an itinerant who bounced from KC to Minnesota to Chicago to Charlotte, and a San Diego Charger. And one of those teams isn't even a team now, at least in that place.

It's also not because the guys who got in didn't deserve to.

Jared Allen's 12th on the all-time sack list, led the league in sacks twice, and is the all-time leader in safeties. Eric Allen had 54 interceptions and returned eight of them for touchdowns (and was in his next to last year of eligibility). Antonio Gates had receiver stats in a tight end's body after coming into the league as an undrafted former basketball player, and all he did was change the entire position. And seniors candidate Sterling Sharpe had a dominant career, cut short only by injury (sound familiar?)

And it's certainly not because they weren't worthy because both obviously were, and the results and their resumes indicate that. Luke Kuechly and Steve Smith are obviously Hall of Famers someday. Source: My two eyes. They were dominant players, the ones that opponents built game plans around slowing them down because stopping them wasn't an option that was available.

Mostly, and least satisfactorily, it's because the Hall of Fame's board of directors decided to change the rules and make things more selective.

As a voter considering the list of 15 modern finalists, my standard line was always, "Don't tell me which one you want in; tell me which 10 you don't." Now, make it 12. In my opinion (I won't speak for any other voters), the new rule requiring 80 percent of a reduction vote from seven players is artificially restrictive for the sake of being restrictive. Some players in the Hall complained, but it's a business made up of competitors, many of whom believe that no one is more deserving of the highest honor than they are.

But closing the door to the club in Luke Kuechly's face doesn't make any of them more special than they already were.

Kuechly's an automatic finalist next year and was close enough to make it sting. But he was as gracious as you'd imagine. (When Kuechly had a question about the selection process, it wasn't about when he was getting in; it was whether he'd find out in time to make travel plans so his mom could be there. That's who Luke Kuechly is.) He sat in the crowd at NFL Honors last night and watched the announcement first hand, after getting a call from Hall of Fame president Jim Porter prior to the show.

"It has been an exciting year or so getting to last night at Honors," Kuechly said. "I love the game of football, and seeing guys like Jared, who we all got to enjoy in Carolina, get in, and guys like Antonio Gates, that I played against as a rookie, was really cool. As well as seeing Eric and Sterling, two guys with great careers get in is what the Hall of Fame is all about. We will see what happens next year; we all know Steve's time is coming up."

But the waiting remains hard for them and the people who watched them because Luke Kuechly and Steve Smith have already proven they meet the standards.

If you survive the cut from 175 or so preliminary nominees to 50, and then from 50 to 25, and 25 to 15 finalists, and then reduction votes to 10 and then five, you are by definition elite, and creating an arbitrary mathematical hurdle doesn't change that. Most, if not all, of the finalists deserve to be enshrined someday.

If there's a consolation for the players left behind, it's that there's a general agreement among their peers and the voters that they'll eventually get in, even if these rules make it harder and the wait longer.

While he was on the stage with fellow Hall of Famers Thursday night, short-time Panther Jared Allen just shook his head when asked about his former teammate.

Allen got to watch Luke Kuechly every day. He knows Luke Kuechly's a Hall of Famer. He saw why.

In electing the smallest class in two decades, thanks to the new rules, Kuechly was not part of the class in his first year of eligibility. Allen, in his fifth, could only offer words of consolation that he heard from previous players who had to wait.

"I'm going to give him the same advice Cris Carter gave me in London this year," Allen began when asked if he expected Kuechly to be joining him on the stage (Carter waited six years to hear his name called). "The process can be frustrating, yes, but once you're in, once you have the gold jacket, the process kind of fades, and you're in. Look, I think, and even for myself, he doesn't need it for validation. I didn't need it for validation; I knew what I played for. I played this game for the respect of my peers and the respect of those who played before me, and I knew I had that. This is the cherry on the top. It really is.

"But I'd be totally lying to you if I said it doesn't get frustrating because you kind of get in this competitive, competitive mindset against other guys. You're like, I love these guys. These are great guys. Why am I comparing notes 15 years later? This is stupid, but it gets you because we're all competitors.

"So I would, I would tell him, you know what, God will give it to you when you get it. He's gonna get in. I don't think anybody has a doubt that he's going to get it. But yeah, I think just try to breathe and ask questions about what the process is like. Because you kind of deal with the emotions based on the process that you experience and you don't realize that that process is complicated. It really is complicated, especially when you're trying to take great players and say one's greater than this person this year; how do you fit the mold? So now you kind of look back and you see the totality of which to tell people, hey, breathe, relax, try to enjoy it, and that's all you can do.

"I empathize. I truly do, but I mean, he's beyond deserving."

Unfortunately for Kuechly and Smith, in this current system, deserve's got nothing to do with it.

They just have to be disappointed and wait, confident that they've done their part.