And even if you concede that, yeah, Owens was often a Hall of Fame-level jerk.

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Twice is too much. But too late for that — the results are in, and one of the three or four greatest receivers ever to step onto a football field missed the Canton cut again Saturday. 

(Also, the author of one of the greatest on-field trolls ever, even before “trolling” became a thing.)

Having said that, though, the key words here are “too late.’’ 

That phrase might as well be the official Hall of Fame slogan; it should be chiseled over the entrance and emblazoned all over the walls inside. This Hall is an endless procession of players who waited too long to get in, only exceeded by the line of players who are still outside waiting. Like Owens.

And Kurt Warner, Terrell Davis and Morten Andersen, who got enough votes this year, all got in … too late. Last year with Charles Haley: late. Tim Brown before that: late.

This has to stop.

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It’s unfair to belittle the players who did get in, so let’s ease up on slandering Andersen for being a kicker (only the second ever to make it) or sack master Jason Taylor. They’re not the problem. 

The backlog is getting too long, and the tales of long waits stretched to their limits, of making players who have earned the honor by any reasonable criteria, just snap. Like, for example, Owens .

He’s entitled to feel hurt, petty and eager to lash out. Does this really look like a Hall of Fame if eligible players sit and sit and sit and wait to see if someone arbitrarily decides they belong?

Because it’s only been a year since we saw someone’s time run out. Ken Stabler was honored posthumously, remember? So was Dick Stanfel.  Jerry Kramer, again , is running out of chances to make his pitch. The damn Ice Bowl game will be 50 years old in December.

Blowing it a little out of proportion, maybe? Not if we suddenly wake up, remember that, oh yeah, Owens played in a Super Bowl on a broken leg and almost dragged the Eagles team he betrayed so unforgivably to victory … and realize that it was 20 years ago, or 30. And then discover that those future voters are still mad about what he said about Donovan McNabb.

Many fingers are being pointed at the voting system. To do that, though, means finding a demonstrably better one … and forgetting that under different systems, the exact same snubs infect the halls of fame in baseball and basketball.

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If there is a flaw that jumps out, it’s the limit of seven inductees each year. The window seems even smaller lately, because senior committee nominees are fighting to get in, too. And why is there a senior committee? To help the players who, yes, had to wait too long.  

Maybe a one-year lifting of the ceiling needs to happen, to make up for the growing number of past oversights. That would make for a marathon of an induction ceremony, but that’s better than seeing the game’s immortals go through this year after year, and making fans wonder what they’ve been watching all these years.

While the takes today are at peak temperature around Owens, there were no such debates about the character of Warner and Davis, about Stabler before that, about Kramer since the 1970s, about all the legendary long waits: Lynn Swann, John Mackey, Harry Carson, Art Monk, Cris Carter, just to name a few.

Or about those still waiting, like finalists Joe Jacoby and Brian Dawkins.

The Hall of Fame waiting class is as accomplished as the one whose wait is over.

And it will stay that way as long as Owens gets left out, and the reasons for it get less and less plausible.