If Bill Belichick isn't a first-ballot Hall of Famer, no one — not even Tom Brady — should ever be again
Make room, David Tyree. One side, Philly Special. We have a new contender for the most shocking Patriots upset:
Bill Belichick is not a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Seriously. Read that again if you need to.
Bill Belichick - eight-time Super Bowl-winning coach, second-winningest head coach of all time - is not a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Seriously? [Expletive]ing seriously? What the actual [expletive]?
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Belichick, according to ESPN's Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta, apparently has fallen short of the 80 percent voting mark necessary to earn enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year. Given that there are 50 Hall of Fame voters, that could means at least 11 voters - 11! - decided that one of the most successful coaches in NFL history didn't deserve the honor of a Hall of Fame berth, at least in 2026.
Before we go any further - and oh, are we going to go further - let's just remember exactly what Belichick did as an NFL coach. Don't let the gossipy chaos of his current North Carolina tenure obscure the fact that this man could lead men:
333 career victories, including playoffs, second only to Don Shula's 347
12 Super Bowl appearances and eight wins, six as a head coach and two as a Giants assistant
17 division titles in New England, most in NFL history
21 winning seasons as a head coach, fifth all time
... plus redefining literally every element of the coaching game, from gamesmanship to roster management to sleeve alterations. For two decades in the NFL, Belichick was the rock around which every other coach in the league flowed.
It's worth noting exactly how Hall of Fame voting goes, as of 2025, for the Senior and Coach categories. Per voter Mike Sando of The Athletic, each voter picks three of the five total finalists in these categories, including Belichick, and as few as one and as many as three will make it, should they receive at least 80% of the vote (or 40 of the 50 votes). So there's a chance the Hall's new voting mechanics penalized Belichick if some voters, say, assumed other voters would wave him in and allocated their votes elsewhere.
Fundamentally, though, there is this: any system that doesn't put Bill Belichick in the Hall of Fame on the first ballot is, by definition, a deeply flawed system.
Bill Belichick was not elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, which surprised many around the NFL. (Grant Thomas/Yahoo Sports)Thing is, once we get past all the Holy [expletive]!" spluttering, this vote - whether for principle or spite - is going to have some serious ripple effects going forward.
First off, this decision exposes the Hall of Fame to (well-deserved) ridicule and, frankly, irrelevance. Belichick doesn't need the approval of a committee to validate his career, true. But if a Hall of Fame can't recognize these achievements as they stand, how does it have any claim to be a true Hall of Fame?
According to ESPN, Belichick's Patriots scandals - Spygate and Deflategate - apparently weighed heavily on several voters' minds. One ESPN source indicated that Bill Polian, a Hall of Fame voter and general manager of the Colts and Bills during Belichick's reign, said Belichick should wait a year" as punishment for the scandals. (Polian, for his part, denied that he attempted to influence a vote against Belichick, telling Sports Illustrated's Matt Verderame I voted for him.")
That then creates an incredibly awkward and presumptuous dynamic: Either the Hall of Fame voters are setting themselves up as judges after the fact - Belichick and the Patriots were punished for both scandals - or they're drawing a line in the sand that Belichick can't ever cross. It's not like Spygate is going to get any less scandalous, right? So if he's not in right now, if he's been penalized for past misdeeds, why should he ever get in?
Plus, this decision creates a second, complementary question: Shouldn't Tom Brady now wait a year," at the very least, when he comes up for the Hall of Fame in 2028? After all, Brady was Belichick's quarterback through both of these scandals. Brady even sat four games as a result of the NFL's Deflategate investigation.
And if Tom [expletive]ing Brady doesn't get into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, well ...
Here's the basic truth. Multiple Hall of Fame voters tried to get too cute, or they tried to settle personal vendettas with Belichick at the expense of a fair recounting of the game's history. There are ways to convey the stains on a Hall of Fame inductee's record to future generations - including it as part of his official profile, for instance. But to exclude Belichick, even for a year, comes across as petty and unbecoming.
Look, there are so many reasons for the rest of the NFL to loathe Belichick and the Patriots - six shiny Lombardi-shaped ones, to start - but you have to recognize his absolute mastery of the NFL for two decades. Love him or hate him, the one thing you couldn't ever do is disregard him.
One measure of a candidate's worthiness for the Hall of Fame is whether you can tell the full story of the game's history without including him. It's literally impossible to tell the story of the NFL in the 21st century without Bill Belichick, just like it was literally impossible to imagine navigating a season from 2001 to 2019 without accounting for the Patriots.
Now, unfortunately, some Hall of Fame voters have made themselves part of the story as well. That's not honoring the game, that's grandstanding. They did not - as Belichick himself would say - do their job.