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Bill Belichick not being selected as a first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer feels impossible on its face. This is the most successful head coach of the Super Bowl era, someone almost everyone involved in the process refers to as a lock. And yet, under the current rules, this outcome wasn’t some wild fluke. It was practically baked in.
I’m not a Hall of Fame voter, but I’ve covered induction weekend in Canton for many years, and one thing has always been clear: the process matters just as much as the résumé. What happened this week isn’t a failure by the voters. It’s a failure by the system they were asked to operate under.
Before the final vote ever takes place, the Hall relies on three separate Blue-Ribbon Committees to evaluate seniors, coaches, and contributors. For the Class of 2026, that process produced senior finalists Ken Anderson, Roger Craig, and L.C. Greenwood, with Belichick advancing as the coach finalist and Robert Kraft as the contributor finalist. These names didn’t stumble into the room. Each survived months of debate and historical review meant to make sure worthy figures, especially from older eras, weren’t forgotten.
Until recently, that work actually mattered. Before 2025, finalists coming out of those subcommittees were voted on independently by the full selection committee. Voters were asked a simple question: is this person a Hall of Famer? The 80 percent approval standard existed then just as it does now, requiring 40 of 50 votes.
The Hall chose to change that.
Beginning last year, the five finalists from seniors, coaches, and contributors were lumped into one voting block, with each selector limited to three votes. That decision didn’t raise the bar. It shrank the doorway. With only 150 total votes available and a 40-vote threshold, the math becomes unforgiving. Four or five candidates can’t possibly get in. Three is technically possible but wildly unlikely. Most years, you’re realistically looking at one or two. Zero is no longer out of the question.
We saw this coming immediately when only Sterling Sharpe emerged from the senior process last year, producing a four-person Hall of Fame class, the smallest since 2005. That didn’t help clear the backlog. It reinforced it. There are still Hall-of-Fame-caliber players from the 1950s and earlier waiting their turn. And even before this rule change, the system had blind spots. Jerry Kramer waited decades. Ken Stabler, Les Richter, Cliff Branch and Dick Stanfel weren’t inducted until after they passed away.
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Multiple voters have since said they supported the current North Carolina Tar Heels head coach. That actually makes the outcome easier to understand, not harder. Under this structure, a candidate doesn’t need resistance to fall short. They just need competition and artificial limits. This isn’t rejection. It’s vote scarcity.
The fix isn’t complicated. Let selectors vote for four candidates instead of three. Better yet, let them vote for all five and trust the work of the subcommittees. If someone objects, they can leave a name off their ballot and explain why publicly. Transparency beats hiding behind math.
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At this point, the Hall might as well bring in Jeff Probst and start forming Survivor-style alliances. Because once voters are forced to strategize instead of evaluate, the Hall of Fame vote stops being about legacy and starts being about survival.
If Bill Belichick can get voted off the island, the problem isn’t the voters. It’s the game.
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