A Flawed System

The leak about Bill Belichick not getting into the Pro Football Hall of Fame has created, as expected, tremendous backlash.  And it's also created an unprecedented response from the Hall of Fame.  First, they released a statement defending the voting process (more on that in a minute).  Then, the voters who didn't vote for Belichick began to trickle out and give their reasons.  And now, we found out the vote total.  He missed by one vote, getting 39 of the required 40.  If one of the 11 voters who didn't put his name down had, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all.  (And I'm betting at least one of them wishes he had at this point.)

Since you need 80 percent, we knew it had to be at least 11.  As it turns out, it was exactly 11.  So far, two of the "No" voters have explained themselves, and, while I don't necessarily agree with them, I can understand their reasons.  Vahe Gregorian of the Kansas City Star blamed the system.  There were five candidates--Belichick, Robert Kraft, and three senior nominees (Ken Anderson, Roger Craig, L.C. Greenwood).  Voters could only vote for three of them.  Gregorian wrote an article explaining his "No" vote and said that he believes Belichick is a Hall of Famer, but he wanted to throw his support for the three senior candidates.  He was voting for them rather than against Belichick.  Which I can respect.

Another voter, Mike Chappell, explained that he voted for two of the senior candidates, which left him with only one spot left for either Belichick or Kraft.  He decided to vote for Kraft.  Chappell credited Kraft for everything he did for the NFL beyond just building the Patriots dynasty (such as ending the 2011 lockout and his role in negotiating the league's broadcast deals).  He also noted that Spygate impacted his decision.  Does he think Belichick should not get into the Hall of Fame because of it?  Of course not.  (Deflategate's not gonna keep Brady out.)  But, left with the choice between Kraft and Belichick, he went with Kraft.  Which, again, you can understand.

What all of this controversy has exposed is how the Pro Football Hall of Fame's voting system is incredibly flawed.  It was already the most exclusive voting body among all of the Hall of Fame.  There are only 50 total voters.  It's also the only one where they go into a room and discuss the candidates face-to-face before making their individual decisions.  Then, throw in the fact that each voter only gets to pick three, you're looking at a finite number of 150 votes.

Last year, the Pro Football Hall of Fame made a number of changes to the voting system.  Those changes, which were completely unnecessary and not many agree with them, made it that much harder to get into the Hall.  As we saw last year, when only four players (only three of the Modern Era finalists) were selected.  To put that in perspective, more people got into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2025 than the Football Hall of Fame!

I have no idea why they felt the need to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame more exclusive, but they did.  It seems likely that the outrage Belichick's snub has created will lead to additional changes next year.  Whether that means going back to the old system or something different, more change is definitely in order.  Because the current system is flawed at best and stupid at worst.

One of the biggest reasons for this controversy is also one of the biggest nonsensical things they did when they revamped the system last year.  Previously, coaches, contributors and seniors were all considered separately.  Now they're all lumped together.  And voters can only pick three of the five.  Which means they have to decide between voting for the senior candidates, who've been overlooked to this point and may never be finalists again, or coaches and contributors (which means not voting for at least one of the seniors).  As Gregorian noted, a lot of voters have a problem with that.

An obvious solution would be going back to having those three groups considered separately.  If they want to keep the coaches and contributors together, fine.  But they shouldn't be grouped in with the seniors.  That does a disservice to both groups.  Because you'll inevitably have fewer people getting in since there will almost certainly be split votes.  (We'll see what happens this year, but last year, Sterling Sharpe was the only member of the senior/coach/contributor group to get in.  Since the leading vote-getter is guaranteed to get in regardless, I bet nobody got 80 percent on that ballot last year.)

If they want to reduce the number of finalists in each category to keep the class size more manageable, that could be a reasonable solution.  They could even do something similar to what baseball does with its Era Committees and not vote for each group every year.  I think you need to keep the annual senior vote, but, if you do the coaches and contributors in alternating years, that might work, too.  Whatever they do, they need to re-separate the three groups.  As we've seen, lumping the seniors, coaches and contributors all together doesn't work.  They're three distinct categories and should be considered as such.

Likewise, they need to get rid of the maximum number of votes per person.  I think that was the biggest reason we had a ridiculously small class last year and was likely the biggest reason why Belichick didn't make the cut this year.  The 80 percent threshold is difficult enough without the limited number of selections.  Especially since the voting body is so small.  Candidates need to get 40 of 50 votes to be elected.  That's not a big margin for error even without a finite number of choices per voter.

Before last year's changes, once the voting body made its final round of cuts, it was just a straight "Yes/No" vote for the five remaining candidates.  If they reached that point, a "Yes" vote was pretty much guaranteed and the selection committee essentially just rubber-stamped the final list.  Last year, they increased that number to seven, of which a maximum of five could get in.  Only three did.  Four didn't.  More players who reached the finalist stage didn't get in than did!  No doubt because the voters only had a certain number of votes apiece and couldn't vote for someone they otherwise would have.

Those four players--Willie Anderson, Torry Holt, Luke Kuechly and Adam Vinatieri--became automatic finalists this year.  Which is little consolation.  Because the ballot changes every year, and this year's list of finalists includes two sure-fire first-ballot names (Drew Brees and Larry Fitzgerald), as well as two other first-timers who'll get in fairly soon, if not this year (Frank Gore and Jason Witten).  Last year might've been Anderson, Holt, Kuechly and Vinatieri's best chance, at least for a while.  The fact that they didn't max out at five inductees (especially knowing that these loaded classes were coming) is absurd!  And, as a result, those guys could very well now end up in ballot purgatory.

So, it's not just the senior/coach/contributor voting system that's flawed.  The 2025 changes impacted the Modern Era vote, too.  We obviously don't know how many people will be in this year's Hall of Fame class, but the ridiculously small class last year was a direct result of those changes.  They took an imperfect system and made it worse.

Fortunately, it's not too late to fix what they broke.  So, maybe some good will end up coming out of this.  If Bill Belichick, a first-ballot Hall of Famer if there ever was one, didn't get in on the first ballot, something's wrong.  His failure to get in exposed a flawed voting system for exactly what it is.  Flawed.  And I'd expect some corrective measures to be taken that ensure something like this can't happen again in 2027.