Count Tom Brady among the swarm of prominent football figures to speak out in dismay after longtime New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick fell short of the voting threshold required for Pro Football Hall of Fame induction. Brady, who won six of his seven Super Bowls under Belichick’s tutelage, called the snub from first-ballot induction “completely ridiculous” and lamented the selection process after his former coach fell short of the required 40 out of 50 votes.
Belichick became Hall of Fame-eligible this year because he has not coached in the NFL since 2023. He will be back up for nomination as part of the 2027 class, but that he missed out on joining the illustrious fraternity in his first year on the ballot left the football world puzzled.
“I don’t understand it,” Brady said during a Seattle Sports radio appearance. “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. He’s incredible. There’s no coach I’d rather play for. If I’m taking one coach to go out there to win a Super Bowl, give me one season, I’m taking Bill Belichick. So that’s enough said.”
From an accolades standpoint, there is no justification for voters excluding Belichick from their ballots. He set a head coaching record with six Super Bowl wins and added two more as an assistant, leads all coaches with 12 Super Bowl appearances, ranks second all time with 333 career wins and holds more playoff victories (31) than any coach in league history.
Belichick’s implication in multiple scandals during his Patriots tenure are essentially the only knocks against his résumé and were enough for multiple voters to pass over him as a first-ballot inductee. One voter said to ESPN that the scandals “really bothered some of the guys.”
“When it comes down to votes and popularity and all that, welcome to the world of voting,” Brady said. “You may as well go try for the Oscars or whatever and get a big panel to tell you if you’re good or not. It’s the way it works, unfortunately.”
Only four coaches have been enshrined as first-ballot Hall of Famers since 1970. There has been a movement to keep Belichick out of that group because of Spygate and Deflategate, and enough voters shared the sentiment that he ought to wait a year.
Belichick will almost certainly get into the Hall next year after paying the price for his controversies. But that he has to wait a year and that his legacy will always be slightly tarnished by his lack of first-ballot status raises questions about the validity of the voting process itself.
“He’s going to get into the Hall of Fame,” Brady said. “In the end, I’m not worried about that. A lot of times in life, for all of us, things don’t happen exactly how you want them on your timeline. But we’ll all be there to celebrate him when it does happen. He’s going to have a huge turnout from so many players, coaches that appreciated everything that he did and the commitment that he made to winning and the impact that he had on all our lives. That will be a great celebration when it happens.”
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