When Bill Belichick wasn't voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot, you knew changes to the election process were on the horizon. What we couldn't have expected was that they would completely overhaul the entire thing. Fewer electors, back to an in-person meeting, no automatic finalists, categories being combined and separated. All of which were part of a "2 1/2-year review process" that they hope will improve and strengthen the selection process. I'm not sure it'll have the desired effect, though. Because it feels like this new voting process might be even less transparent!
Let's start with the most obvious elephant in the room. They're eliminating the Senior category entirely. Instead, all players will be considered together regardless of how long they've been retired. They still become eligible after five years, but will now simply stay in that pool instead of moving into a separate Senior pool after they've been on the ballot for 15 years. Not only do I think this is a terrible move, I think it's an incredibly unnecessary one.
Over the last two years, a grand total of two Senior candidates were elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Sterling Sharpe in 2025 and Roger Craig this year. And they both got in because they were the leading vote-getter in the combined Senior/Coach/Contributor vote. There were three Senior candidates each year. Four of those six finalists didn't get in. And who knows when they'll get another chance to be considered?! Being grouped with all the Modern Era players certainly won't help their case.
The whole reason Senior players were separated from the Modern Era candidates in the first place is because of how difficult it is to compare them. Look at baseball. Their equivalent of the "Senior" category is split into three separate pools of candidates, each with its own separate election. In football, they were always mixed in with the Modern Era finalists at the end, but only after a subcommittee determined the Senior finalist(s). Not anymore.
In the past, the Senior candidates were almost always rubber-stamped once they made it out of the subcommittee. Once they were combined with the Coaches and Contributors, it was no longer a guarantee. In fact, it made it even harder for the Seniors to get in. Hence only two of six Senior finalists being selected over the past two elections. Moving forward, by not having the Seniors in a separate category, it'll become even more difficult, if not impossible!
For that reason, I don't like the decision to drop the Senior category. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison between the Seniors and the Modern Era candidates. There's not even a guarantee that somebody who's been retired more than 20 years will be a finalist. I'm not saying that the Senior finalist needed to automatically be elected in the previous selection process. But they were at least getting a fairer shake when compared only against players of their own era. I have no problem with separating the Seniors from the Coaches and Contributors. I just wish they still had their own pool.
It's not like things will be much easier for the Coaches and Contributors, either. Those subcommittees still exist and will each name one finalist, who will join with the 13 player finalists to get a final group of 15. That brings it back to the old way when everybody was considered together. Which they went away from because the Coaches and Contributors were almost always missing out because the voters went for the players instead. Why should we think it'll be any different now?
One change I do support is the elimination of automatic finalists. But only to an extent. During the past two election cycles, players who made the final cut but weren't elected, moved right to final round of voting the next year. That will no longer be the case. Although, I would've liked to have seen that provision grandfathered in instead of implemented immediately. Willie Anderson, Terrell Suggs and Marshal Yanda would've been the automatic finalists for 2027 (I think Suggs is a virtual lock to be elected next year). It would've made much more sense to let those three retain their spots, then have no carryovers in 2028.
I'm also not thrilled with the stipulation that the new classes will be between three and seven members. Last year, there were only four inductees. This year, there were five. The Pro Football Hall of Fame used to regularly have seven- or eight-member classes, which some (namely Deion Sanders) felt was too big. So they overcorrected and made it too hard to get in. Even for the Modern Era candidates. If this new process gets classes back in the six- or seven-member range, I might be able to get on board.
There are two new provisions that I do like, however. The first is the return to an in-person voting meeting. They used to meet during Super Bowl week every year before moving to a virtual meeting during COVID. Even after COVID ended, they stuck with the virtual meeting for reasons I don't quite understand. The virtual meeting is not only preferred, it's better. Face-to-face conversation and debate makes for a more thoughtful selection. I'm glad they're going back to it.
Likewise, I like the reduction of the number of selectors from 50 to 28. Those 28 (of which only 25 will be active voters, with the other three serving as alternates) will also have no affiliation to individual teams. The Hall of Fame found that having the electors each linked to an individual team led to the perception of biases (whether intentional or not). They also eliminated having each candidate presented by one of the selection committee members (which made it obvious how he was voting on that player). Now, the candidates will all be presented by the same person, who's not a member of the selection committee.
While the Hall of Fame is still determining which voters will retain their spots, I think it's probably safe to say Tony Dungy won't keep his. He didn't do himself any favors with how noncommittal he was when asked questions about Belichick. And that reduction isn't necessarily making it easier to get in since they're keeping the 80 percent threshold. That means they need a "Yes" vote from 20 of the 25 voters. So, unless the voters are in virtual agreement before making their selections, we could still end up with smaller classes. (We also don't even know how many people each voter can vote for, which can obviously have an impact on the results.)
Which makes me very interested to see how this new voting process will play out. Will having everybody lumped together into one ballot be better or worse? I think the changes to the makeup of the committee and how they'll meet are good and well-intentioned, but how much of a positive impact on the actual voting process will they have? Because, let's face it, the Pro Football Hall of Fame's voting process is flawed. It was flawed before, and it's still flawed after these changes. But at least they're trying to improve, and I give them credit for that.
And, no matter what, there's going to be controversy over who does or doesn't get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame regardless. Will it be as egregious as Bill Belichick not getting in on the first ballot? Probably not. But there will definitely be something that causes them to reevaluate and revamp the process again in a few years. And maybe then they'll once again realize that Seniors and Modern Era candidates need to be considered separately. Because comparing somebody who played in the 1970s with somebody who played in the 2010s is just stupid!
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