Bill Belichick’s shocking snub as a first-ballot Hall of Famer prompted confusion, outrage and pressure to overhaul the entire voting process.
Tom Brady found it “completely ridiculous.”
Rob Gronkowski called it “absolutely absurd.”
Others were even harsher in their incredulity.
“I would like to know the names of the a–holes who did not vote for him. They are too cowardly to identify themselves,” Jimmy Johnson, himself a Hall of Fame coach, wrote on social media.
“If you did not vote for BB identify yourselves!!!” Johnson wrote in another post. “Probably too much of a coward. Hide behind your SECRET BALLOT!!!”
Indeed, Belichick’s eye-popping omission, as first reported by ESPN this week, sparked renewed scrutiny over the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s controversial voting system.
Here’s how it works:
Votes are made by a Selection Committee that includes one media representative from every city with an NFL team — New York and Los Angeles have two apiece — as well as a rep from the Pro Football Writers of America and up to 17 at-large delegates, which include non-media members.
The Selection Committee congregates every year ahead of the Super Bowl to review presentations and debate the merits of candidates during a comprehensive and often intense meeting, where members eventually cast their anonymous ballots.
A candidate must receive a vote from at least 80% of the committee to be elected.
Belichick — who won an NFL-record six Super Bowls as the New England Patriots’ head coach and two as the Giants’ defensive coordinator — was up against four other candidates in a seniors category that also included Robert Kraft, Roger Craig, L.C. Greenwood and Ken Anderson.
Voters were allowed to vote for up to three candidates from the seniors category.
While the results won’t be officially revealed until the “NFL Honors” ceremony on Feb. 5, it is now known that Belichick did not receive the requisite 40 votes out of 50 to be inducted this year.
“As a @ProFootballHOF voter, I believe in full transparency,” Gary Myers, a longtime Daily News columnist, wrote on social media. “I voted for Bill Belichick and I am embarrassed for our 50-member committee that the greatest coach in NFL history is not a first ballot HOFer and some voters apparently felt he deserved to be punished for Spygate.”
“Spygate,” of course, refers to the 2007 scandal in which Belichick’s Patriots were caught videotaping the defensive signals of Jets coaches. Belichick was among those fined for the infraction, while the Patriots were docked their 2008 first-round pick.
The Patriots later lost multiple picks — including a first-rounder — for another scandal, “Deflategate,” in which they were caught deflating footballs used in the 2014 AFC Championship Game.
At least one voter, however, said those scandals weren’t why he left Belichick off of his ballot.
Kansas City Star columnist Vahe Gregorian wrote that while he considers Belichick a surefire Hall of Famer, he used his three votes on Craig, Greenwood and Anderson, all of whom he feared “most likely won’t ever have a hearing again.”
“All three have been long deserving of induction in the Hall. All three have been, well, snubbed for decades,” Gregorian wrote. “As it came time to cast the vote, I found myself thinking not just of them but of the experiences of recent senior semifinalists and finalists who didn’t make it.”
In the wake of Belichick’s exclusion, many have argued the Hall should adopt a new format in which voters simply select “yes” or “no” for every candidate, rather than having to strategize how to disperse their votes.
CBS Sports football reporter Jonathan Jones, meanwhile, was among those who contended the Hall should begin to make votes public.
“If Bill Belichick is not a first ballot member of the hall, then it is not a hall at all,” Jones wrote.
Even the Hall felt compelled to weigh after the news of Belichick’s snub leaked, saying in a statement that voters who violated bylaws could be removed from the Selection Committee.
In the meantime, the hand-wringing continues.
“I don’t understand it,” Brady, who won six Super Bowls with Belichick as the Patriots’ quarterback, told Seattle Sports 710-AM. “I mean, I was with him every day. If he’s not a first-ballot Hall of Famer, there’s really no coach that should ever be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, which is completely ridiculous because people deserve it.”
Gronkowski, a tight end on three of those championship teams, told ABC News, “He’s gonna be a Hall of Famer, no doubt about that, but he should have and deserved to be a Hall of Fame coach, first ballot.”
Sharing a similar sentiment was Kraft, the Patriots’ owner whose relationship with Belichick is believed to be strained since the latter’s 24-year tenure as head coach ended in 2024.
“He is the greatest coach of all time,” Kraft said in a statement to The Associated Press, “and he unequivocally deserves to be a unanimous first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer.”
