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At the time he was fined a half-million dollars for the violation of the NFL’s competitive rules that came to be known as “Spygate”, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was not suspended by the league office for any subsequent game.
Well before superstar quarterback Tom Brady was suspended four games and the Patriots organization fined $1 million for a violation of the NFL’s competitive rules that came to be known as “Deflategate”, Belichick initially declared he was “shocked” to hear about reporting that his team might have doctored footballs used in an AFC Championship victory over the Colts.
These episodes were usurped, over time, by the avalanche of success that included six Lombardi trophies and nine Super Bowl appearances during the two-decade Patriots dynasty, but Tuesday we learned there might be at least some small price to pay for having multiple “Gates” occur on your watch.
Sports figures from Patrick Mahomes to LeBron James to JJ Watt expressed some degree of outrage for the reported decision – still unofficial, as yet – to exclude Belichick from first-ballot Hall of Fame status. After all, those unmatched six Lombardis as a head coach – even trophy namesake Vince Lombardi won only five league titles – surely would qualify him to enter Canton immediately.
IYER: Three reasons Hall voters snubbed Bill Belichick
Well, excuse me, but Barry Bonds hit 762 home runs (seven more than any other player in league history), hit 73 home runs in the 2001 season (three more than any other player) and drew 2,558 walks (368 more than any other player), and he was denied induction to the National Baseball Hall of Fame so many times he’s no longer on the regular ballot.
Howie Kendrick was on there this time around, but not Bonds. The all-time home runs leader not only fell short of being a first-ballot Hall of Famer, he wasn’t even a 10th-ballot Hall of Famer.
Is there a reason for this?
Bonds never was suspended by Major League Baseball for use of performance-enhancing substances. By league policy, he never failed one of their tests. But he remains outside its walls, and there's scarcely a sound when inductions are conducted each July.
So why would Belichick being forced to wait perhaps 12 months warrant such outrage?
Indeed, outrage seems a fair descriptor, given Mahomes labeling it “insane” and James calling it “IMPOSSIBLE, EGREGIOUS … DISRESPECTFUL.” The caps were all his, by the way.
MORE: Who didn't vote for Bill Belichick for first-ballot Hall of Fame?
Consider that by the time it was discovered that the Patriots had been filming the sideline of the Jets, presumably in order to spot signals and perhaps decode them in order to identify their play calls, New England already had won three of the previous six Super Bowls. Just as Bonds might have been a Hall of Famer based on the three MVP awards he won with the Pirates and Giants in the early 1990s, Belichick no doubt would have been so honored if he never won another after 2004.
How long was this happening, though? According to the book “Spygate: The Untold Story”, a Patriots employee possessed a tape of the Steelers sideline signals from the 2001 season AFC Championship game, which advanced the Pats to their first Super Bowl of the dynasty era.
The evidence of what occurred in the 2007 Patriots-Jets game was ordered to be destroyed by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, so none of us got the chance to see what had occurred – and judge whether the league’s fines and draft-choice forfeitures were sufficient penalties. But the late Arlen Specter, then a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, said in 2008 Goodell had told him Belichick had been doing this since taking over as New England head coach in 2000.
It seems extreme to harangue Hall of Fame voters for considering these circumstances in denying Belichick immediate entry.
Consider some of the gentlemen against whom Belichick was competing for inclusion. There are five players/coaches/ executives on the ballot, and each required 80 percent approval to be selected.
Ken Anderson was MVP of the league in 1981, appeared in four Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl, was named Comeback Player of the Year and won what is now called the Walter Payton Man of the Year. He led the league in passer rating four times and passing yards twice. And he’s been waiting 35 years.
L.C. Greenwood earned four Super Bowl rings with the Steelers and was a six-time Pro Bowl selection and twice was first-team All-Pro. Playing on a defensive line with legendary Joe Greene, he led the team in sacks – then an unofficial stat – six times. He’s been eligible for 39 years, and passed away in 2013.
Roger Craig helped redefine the running back position as part of Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense in the 1980s. He rushed for 8,189 yards, not an overwhelming total for a star back, but he also caught 566 passes for 4,911 yards. That’s 13,100 yards combined, which is top 10 all-time among running backs – and all eight ahead of him essentially raced over the path he explored. Craig was a three-time Super Bowl winner, four-time Pro Bowler and was named Offensive Player of the Year in 1988 by the Associated Press. He’s been waiting since 1999.
There’s no reason any of them, or all of them, should wait for induction even longer to install someone whose operation was involved in two of the three most visible NFL scandals of this century.
MORE: Why Bill Belichick was snubbed from first ballot of Hall of Fame vote
The only thing outrageous about what is transpiring with the Hall inductions is how quickly so many in the public forgot about what happened with the Patriots in the previous two decades.
This is not Ballotgate, nor Famegate, nor whatever lazy descriptor one might one to conjure.
This is not justice, either. The time for that was 2007.
But it is just.
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