Why Bill Belichick isn’t in the Hall of Fame yet

The legendary Bill Belichick will not be a first-ballot Hall of Famer after he fell short of the 40 out of 50 votes needed for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. This was Belichick’s first year of eligibility. 

Belichick will make next year’s class (2027), but there is a special pantheon reserved for “first-ballot” inductees, in any sport, and Belichick’s legacy will be forever dulled, albeit only so slightly, by not receiving that honor. 

It’s a shocking outcome that has some calling for voter reform with the NFL world up in arms, including three-time Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes and three-time Defensive Player of the Year and NFL on CBS broadcaster J.J. Watt. 

Belichick is one of the greatest coaches in NFL history, if not the very best. The résumé speaks for itself:

• Eight Super Bowl titles (NFL-record six as head coach of the New England Patriots and two as defensive coordinator for the New York Giants)
• 333 career wins including playoffs (second-most by a head coach behind Don Shula)
• 31 playoff wins (most by head coach in NFL history)

Belichick’s body of work is the best of any coach in NFL history, and undoubtedly better than the four other head coaches since 1970 who were enshrined in Canton on the first ballot. 

Unlike those four head coaches, who had squeaky-clean resumes, the sticking point with Belichick (per ESPN) are the multiple scandals (Spygate and Deflategate) that he was embroiled in during his time with the Patriots. 

In 2007, Belichick was fined $500,000 — the largest fine ever levied against an NFL coach to that point — for his involvement in the Spygate scandal. The Patriots also lost a first-round pick in the 2008 NFL Draft. 

In 2015, the Patriots were fined $1 million after an investigation found they deflated footballs during the 2014 AFC Championship game. They also forfeited a 2016 first-round pick and 2017 fourth-round pick and quarterback Tom Brady was suspended for four games. 

Bill Polian, a former Bills and Colts general manager and rival of Belichick’s Patriots, reportedly told voters Belichick should “wait a year” because of the 2007 Spygate scandal according to an anonymous voter. Polian at first appeared to deny that claim Tuesday night, telling Sports Illustrated the report was “categorically untrue” and that he had voted for Belichick. But in an another interview Tuesday, with ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr., who had first broken the news of Belichick’s snub, Polian said he could not remember with 100% certainty if he voted for Belichick, saying he was 95% sure he did. Polian is 83-years-old. 

Since we do not yet know the final vote count, the blame of course can not be pinned solely on Polian (though it would be unfortunate if Belichick was stuck at 39 votes and it comes out that Polian did not in fact vote for him). Polian did say he voted for Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who is a Hall of Fame finalist for the first time in his 14th year of eligibility and is the sole finalist in the contributor category for the 2026 class. 

Were some voters just unable to square the idea of putting Kraft and Belichick on their ballots in the same year? Did their beef complicate any feelings? We do not know. Belichick and Kraft were competing with Roger Craig, Ken Anderson and L.C. Greenwood for one to three spots separate from the 15 modern-era finalists. Mike Sando, a Hall of Fame voter and NFL writer for The Athletic, says the voting system could explain the issue here.

Besides that, we know Belichick’s legacy was not helped by the breakup with Tom Brady in 2020. Brady, of course, won his seventh Super Bowl in his first season with the Buccaneers while Belichick did not win a playoff game in his final four seasons with the Patriots after Brady left. Only one of Belichick’s NFL-record 31 playoff wins came without Brady. He had an 84-103 record without Brady in his career as an NFL head coach compared with 249-75 with him (including playoffs). 

That information might settle the debate between who was more important to the Patriots dynasty, but it should in no way factor in Belichick not getting his gold jacket on the first try. His fingerprints were all over the eight Super Bowl teams he was part of. 

• 1986: The Giants allowed three points in their first two playoff games before beating the Broncos 39-20 in the Super Bowl. 
• 1990: Belichick’s defensive gameplan to stop the Bills ‘K-Gun’ offense in Super Bowl XXV is in the Hall of Fame. His coaching was also instrumental in stopping the 49ers three-peat in the 1990 NFC title game which the Giants won 15-13 with backup quarterback Jeff Hostetler. 
• 2001: The Patriots pulled off the 2nd-largest upset in Super Bowl history (14-point underdog) and held the ‘Greatest Show on Turf’ to 17 points.  
• 2003: The Patriots beat co-MVPs Steve McNair and Peyton Manning on the way to the Super Bowl. They held each of their teams (Titans and Colts) to 14 points. 
• 2004: Belichick once again stifled Peyton Manning and the Colts with a physical game plan in a 20-3 win vs. Indianapolis before reeling off two more wins for another title, including the Super Bowl victory vs. Andy Reid and the Eagles. 
• 2014: Malcolm Butler’s goal line interception is one of the most stunning plays in NFL history and a testament to Bill Belichick’s ‘next man up’ montra. Butler was an undrafted rookie from West Alabama, a Division II school.
• 2016: The Patriots pulled off the largest comeback win in Super Bowl history, down 28-3 vs. the Falcons. 
• 2018: Belichick won his eighth and final Super Bowl by holding the Rams and Sean McVay’s high-powered offense to three points. The Patriots also beat Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the AFC title game. 

I’m racking my brain for other possible explanations, because how else are we supposed to reconcile this? At watering holes across America they could point to Belichick’s personal life and a 4-8 season as North Carolina’s head coach as further points to diminish his standing, but both would be ridiculous arguments against his Hall of Fame worthiness. 

There’s Belichick’s coaching tree during the Patriots dynasty, which never bore premium fruit. Romeo Crennel, Brian Daboll, Brian Flores, Joe Judge, Eric Mangini, Jerod Mayo, Bill O’Brien and Josh McDaniels, among others, found little success as NFL head coaches. Are people holding that against him? It would ignore how the greatest head coach in college football history, Nick Saban, was the Browns’ defensive coordinator from 1991-94 under Belichick. Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel played for eight seasons under Belichick. He’s now one win away from a Super Bowl in his first year. 

Until more answers come out, we are left to lean on the explanations of a flawed voting process and voters who potentially wanted to punish Belichick for his role in the aforementioned scandals.

Belichick isn’t the first person to have his Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted delayed. 

Terrell Owens, who has the third-most receiving yards in NFL history (15,934), didn’t get into the Hall of Fame until his third year of eligibility because of his reputation. That sounds even more ridiculous now than it did 10 years ago. 

Many worthy first-ballot coaches have also had to wait:

• Bill Parcells waited until his fourth year as a finalist. He was initially turned down in 2001 and 2002 due to rumors of his return to coaching (which he did from 2003-06 with the Cowboys). Former NFL MVP Lawrence Taylor said this after the news of his election. “If Bill didn’t finally get in this year, they needed to shut the Hall of Fame down. The whole thing wouldn’t have meant anything without him in there.” The same sentiment applies to Belichick. 

• Bill Walsh elected in his fourth year of eligibility in 1993 after leading the 49ers to three Super Bowls in the 1980s and pioneering the ‘West Coast Offense’. 

• Joe Gibbs waited until his fourth year of eligibility after winning three Super Bowl with Washington

• John Madden waited over two decades despite holding the best record by any head coach with at least 100 games coached (.759 win percentage) in NFL history and a Super Bowl title with the Raiders. Perhaps his short tenure as a head coach and his broadcasting career were factors in the wait.

And many in other sports have had to wait and may never be in. The all-time hits king (Pete Rose), the all-time home run leader (Barry Bonds) and the pitcher with the most Cy Young awards (Roger Clemens) are not in the Baseball Hall of Fame for their past deeds, which we would judge as worse than the scandals involving Belichick.  

There may be precedent, there may be the various “gates” he found himself tangled up in, and there’s a few other minor explanations that amount to the tiniest of possible footnotes. At the end of the day, it’s ridiculous that we even have to have this conversation. Look at Belichick’s body of work and it’s impossible that isn’t being inducted this year. It should be a slam dunk. It makes no sense. 

We guess, as Belichick would say, we’re on to 2027.