Yesterday, news leaked that Bill Belichick didn’t hit the number of votes required to be a first-ballot entry into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. One of the greatest coaches in the history of football, any sport really, didn’t do enough to satisfy, at least, 11 voters. WTF! The Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2026 looked to be a loaded one. Drew Brees and Larry Fitzgerald are considered first ballot locks. Bill Belichick was supposed to be an even greater lock. The most Super Bowl wins. The most playoff wins. The third-most regular season wins. For five decades, Belichick had an unprecedented impact on the NFL. If there was ever a coaching resume for first-ballot induction, Bill Belichick had it. How did this happen? How could it happen? Few things seem real these days.
Mike Sando writes for the Athletic and is a Pro Football Hall of Fame voter. He took a swing at explaining how this idiocy might’ve happened. For the record, Sando voted for Belichick and saw his induction as a slam-dunk. First of all, Sando explained the two-year old rules the voters are supposed to follow. Coach finalist (Bill Belichick), Contributor finalist (Robert Kraft), and the three Senior finalists (Roger Craig, Ken Anderson, and L.C. Greenwood) are grouped together at this stage. The five finalists are competing for 1-3 spots. The 50 voters each pick three of the five. Between 1-3 make it to Canton. 40+ votes are needed. If three finalists hit 40, three are inducted. If the votes are distributed amongst the finalists such that no finalist hits 40 votes, the top vote-getter is the only one inducted. Those are the rules that were implemented in 2025. It was one of the reasons, the four-member 2025 Class was so small.
Sando went on to explain some of the potential ways Bill Belichick might get fewer than 40 votes even when 40+ of the voters think he’s a Hall of Famer. Sando actually could’ve stopped here. If 40+ voters think he’s a Hall of Famer, we wouldn’t be doing this. Anyway, in Sando’s words:
Let’s say 4-5 voters who were strong advocates for specific senior players figured Belichick was going to make it regardless, so they funneled votes to competing candidates in hopes of boosting them over the 40-vote threshold.
Let’s say a few voters prioritized senior players on the thinking that Belichick will be back in the room next year, while the players on the ballot this year might disappear into the senior pool forever.
Let’s say a few voters found Spygate/cheating disqualifying.
Let’s say a few voters protested new rules making coaches eligible one year after retiring instead of five.
Whatever the case, I would see this as a repudiation of the new voting rules implemented for 2025, not of Belichick or any candidate not making it.
There will be changes to the process, I predict.
I appreciate Mike Sando’s honesty and explanation. I also think that it’s all bullshit. All of the above examples show the voters either playing voting games or making some sort of protest. The voters are tasked with judging the best in the history of the game. Bill Belichick was one of the very best coaches football, any sport, has ever seen. Arguably, he was the best coach professional football has ever seen. Paul Brown, Vince Lombardi, and Bill Walsh might be the only other coaches in the argument. Only one won’t be a first ballot Hall of Famer. Brown was even inducted before he was done coaching. The waiting period was waived to get Lombardi in the year after his death. You only get one chance at being a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Because of voter games, Belichick missed his one chance.
The Cheating?
Many of the long-time critics of Bill Belichick are apparently giddy with this ridiculous situation. Most of the critics have been critics out of jealousy. It’s common to see people jealous of those with success, especially unprecedented success. It’s true that the Patriots dominance was occasionally clouded by scandals. There were Spygates I and II. There was Deflategate. Although that last one was more on Tom Brady than Belichick. Is that going to keep Brady from being a first ballot Hall of Famer? Who knows? Anyway, the Patriots were accused and punished for videotaping opponents coaching signals during a game against the New York Jets in 2007. The Patriots were accused of videotaping something that nearly everyone in the stadium and many watching on television can see with their own eyes. Coaching signals! During a game! Former Dallas Cowboys coach and Hall of Famer Jimmy Johnson has been outspoken in his support of Belichick. He said that many teams, including his, have videotaped opponents coaching signals. He even said that Howard Mudd gave him the idea. Mudd would go to work with Belichick critics Bill Polian and Tony Dungy in Indianapolis. Johnson also said that he didn’t get much from the effort. Deflategate? Come on! That’s a non-starter. It was a horseshit charge and an even worse investigation. Common sense and the scientific method tells you that you don’t start with a desired outcome and work out an investigation that meets that outcome. That’s what the NFL did. It didn’t work but the league still manufactured a crime and crafted a punishment.
Pro Football Hall of Famer Al Davis often said that if you aren’t cheating you aren’t trying. The NFL has a long history of cheating. The NFL has shown an equally long history to forgive/forget. George Halas spent his entire career as coach and owner of the Chicago Bears working and bending the rules to his benefit. He was in the 1963 inaugural Class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Curly Lambeau got the Green Bay Packers kicked out of the league for cheating during the team’s first year in the league. He was in the 1963 inaugural Class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. NFL stewards Halas, Lambeau, Joe Carr, Bert Bell, Tim Mara, Art Rooney, and George Preston Marshall oversaw the banishment of blacks from their league for 15 years. All but Rooney were in the 1963 inaugural Class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Rooney made it to Canton in the second Class. Marshall was such an unrepentant racist that he named his team the Redskins and kept blacks off his teams until the federal government forced a change in 1962. For 30 of his 33 years as the team’s owner, Marshall kept the Redskins lilly white. That sort of racism wasn’t enough to keep him out of that inaugural Class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Who knows what prompted at least 11 voters to not vote for Bill Belichick. I’ve long had issues with some of the Hall of Famer voters. All of those issues are with the way they’ve handled the league’s history, in particular the league’s long-ago history. Some of the voters have publicly stated that they’ve shut the door on any candidates that played/coached/contributed before their lifetime. Excuse me. The Pro Football Hall of Fame honors the league’s past. All of it. The voters that can’t do that shouldn’t have a vote. Now, some of the voters are showing that they can’t handle the league’s recent history. Bill Belichick’s last Super Bowl win was just seven years ago.
Bill Belichick is a first ballot Hall of Famer in every way imaginable except the one that actually counts. The results of the voting are supposed to be a secret until the new Hall of Famers are introduced at NFL Honors. Even the voters don’t know. That’s why all the voters that spoke out yesterday were stunned by the news that leaked. I believe that this ridiculous news was leaked yesterday so that everyone wouldn’t be stunned by it next week. The shock probably won’t wear off over the next week but now it won’t overshadow (as much) the show of NFL Honors. The news of the night might now be a bit more about the new Hall of Famers than the one that isn’t.
