I served on the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee for close to 20 years, and I know the process can be frustrating, bewildering and utterly foolish. I would also say that the process can be inspiring and joyful. The voting, and the reaction to the voting, is volatile. In the past, I left those meetings with a smile on my face and a hop in my step. I also departed those meetings with curse words in my breath, and many dirty looks on my face.
The committee has cliques. The little groups that think alike, act alike, push others with persistent lobbying behind the scenes. In my experience, the most prominent two or three cliques were determined to establish their authority. And determined to be the most influential voices in the room.
As a voter who was assigned to present or assist in the induction cases for some truly outstanding players – including Roger Wehrli, Jackie Slater, Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Jack Youngblood, Isaac Bruce, Orlando Pace, Aeneas Williams, Art Monk, Kevin Greene, Derrick Thomas and Jerry Kramer (on the senior committee) – I made it my goal to get along with everybody.
Before I became a member of the selection committee, the group of voters were much older, and had been part of the process for literally decades. And they voted as a bloc, these six or seven men. By voting as one, they had the clout to get a Hall of Fame candidate in – or keep a candidate out. I witnessed some of that, and it was ugly. And as a young voter the worst thing I could do was rise up with a dissenting view and insult these gentlemen for having the gall to disagree with them. My temerity could be held against me when it was time for me to make a case for a worthy Hall of Fame candidate.
I’ve provided this background for two reasons:
1. The Pro Football Hall of Fame voting process has never been reliably fair or reasonably consistent. It’s always been a mess in one form or another. And the people who run the Hall of Fame have made it worse by constantly changing the rules, the format and the composition of the voting group. There are former players, coaches and retired team executives on the committee now. And while that should be a positive development, here’s what I soon discovered: these men come into the room with their own biases and grievances. They will push for their friends to make the Hall of Fame cut. Some will badmouth candidates they didn’t like personally.
One quick story: when I made a push for Jerry Kramer on the senior committee – a development that was long overdue – I encountered hostile resistance from a retired Hall of Fame offensive lineman who was part of the candidates’ review and discussions.
I finally asked him: why are you so disagreeable about this? You seem angry. No disrespect, but what am I missing here? And he told me: he personally disliked Kramer because Kramer wrote that popular book (Instant Replay) and he became a big celebrity, and popular with the media, and he was getting TV commercials and all of that. I just don’t like the sumbitch.
Well, OK. Thanks for your objectivity. (Sarcasm.) The good news? I convinced enough voters to put Jerry Kramer in Canton.
2. I was not surprised (at all) to learn that a minority percentage of voters rejected coach Bill Belichick’s candidacy in his first year of Hall of Fame eligibility. This preposterous snub was not only outrageous and petty and childish – it became a massive embarrassment for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Look, I know that Belichick is no angel. Spygate, Deflate Gate. curt and cold with the media. I wrote columns ripping him for the Spygate stuff. The Deflate Gate “scandal” was all about Tom Brady, and it was much ado about very little. Belichick was accused of spying on the Rams before Super Bowl 36 – by having a video guy taping the Rams’ red zone offensive plays. But there was only one problem with that conspiracy theory: the Rams had only ONE red-zone opportunity in the 20-17 loss to New England … and the Rams scored a touchdown.
The Rams lost that game because they turned the ball over three times, didn’t get a takeaway, couldn’t stop the New England running game, and got a bad break when the officiating crew decided to look the other way to the Patriots’ cheap shots, late hits, and roughhousing. Belichick also set the Patriots defense in nickel-dime defenses all game, assuming that the Rams would go pass happy. He was absolutely correct on that, and Marshall Faulk’s role in the game plan was reduced. It was a smart strategy.
I never had a problem with Belichick; I got to know him a little through Tony La Russa. I admire Belichick for reasons that go beyond his remarkable NFL coaching record. He’s one of the great football historians in America, and he helped me when I wanted to ask questions about various Hall of Fame candidates. If Belichick trusted you, even a little, he was gracious about sharing his knowledge, and he always gave a fair and objective assessment on the players. Belichick knows where the best crabhouses are in his native state (Maryland) and that gets points from me.
And what does this have to do with anything?
NOTHING.
Before I continue, I wanted to say something: not every Pro Football Hall of Fame selector is a knucklehead. I greatly admire a bunch of the voters for how they handle the assignment. And I don't believe that every person on the committee -- 50 in all -- have some sort of vendetta against Bill Belichick. And I want to point out that the system itself can lead to crazy outcomes on occasion. The candidate pool that included Belichick also included senior players who have been overlooked ... as well as NFL owners.
Picking Hall of Famers is already difficult without this jumble that throws owners, coaches and players into the same group. It makes no sense. And as Kansas City Star columnist Vahe Gregorian wrote, he found it difficult to separate these owner-player-coach candidates. Vahe did not vote for Belichick. But it wasn't because he has disdain for the coach or wanted to penalize him for SpyGate. Vahe said he went with a senior player because he feared this would be their only shot on the ballot, at least for a while. Vahe assumed that enough voters would support Belichick to produce the necessary votes to get the coach through and on the way to Canton. I wonder how many others shared Gregorian's philosophy. I respect him my old friend Vahe for coming forward to explain his vote. It was a reaffirmation of his personal character.
All of that said ...
Belichick should have been voted in. The anti-Belichick crowd was happy and aroused to see Belichick rejected. Good for them. They had a moment. They had a chance to celebrate. But he will be voted in, so I'm not sure why this was some sort of victory for the mob. This wasn't a win; it was a delay. As usual, Belichick will win. And those people will lose.
But if the executives in Canton had a better and more streamlined system for voting, the process would be more effective and less complicated.
And yeah, I absolutely believe that the moral-minority faction declined to vote for Belichick because they are haters. And by seeking some half-assed, juvenile revenge by sacking Belichick to block him for a year -- well, that has no place in a process that should be conducted with seriousness and sincerity.
Let’s talk about Belichick’s record
Bill Belichick is the most accomplished coach in NFL history. He has eight Super Bowl rings: two as the New York Giants’ defensive coordinator; the last six as Patriots head coach.
In NFL history, only Don Shula and George Halas won more games than Belichick. He holds the record for most postseason wins (31) in league history. He has 332 total wins in his career (regular season + postseason) for a stunning victory count topped only by Shula's 347 combined victories.
Belichick’s New England teams made the playoffs 18 times in 24 seasons, competed in 13 AFC Championship games, won nine AFC titles, made it to nine Super Bowls, and had a 6-3 record in the big game.
In 29 seasons as an NFL head coach – the first five in Cleveland – Belichick’s teams competed in 19 postseasons, had a .647 regular-season winning percentage, and a .705 postseason win percentage.
You don’t have to like Belichick. You may be turned off by the SpyGate scandal. You may think he looks creepy by having such a young girlfriend. You may laugh at his 4-8 record in his first season as the head coach at North Carolina. And ... so what? This is a no-doubt-about it Hall of Fame coach. Who was shut out and denied the honor. Dumb.
Let’s talk about Belichick and Tom Brady
You may also point to Belichick’s sensational record with Tom Brady as his quarterback, then cite the coach’s losing record when Brady wasn’t his quarterback.
OK, is this supposed to be a revelation? Is this a “gotcha” thing? Did you scope this out, Detective Columbo? Wow! You’ve shredded Belichick’s Hall of Fame resume!
A few quickies on that:
– Yeah, great quarterbacks win a lot of games for coaches. Is that a big scoop, a breakthrough discovery? Why, I think you’re onto something there.
– The St. Louis Rams had a .700 winning percentage with Kurt Warner was the starting quarterback. But after Kurt left, the STL Rams had a .366 winning percentage from 2004 through their final season (2015) in our town.
– Tom Landry had a .746 winning percentage with Roger Staubach as his quarterback in Dallas. In games started by another QB, Landry’s winning percentage was .554. That’s a drop of 192 points in the win% without Staubach.
– In Philadelphia, Andy Reid had a .583 win percentage with Donovan McNabb as the starting quarterback, and that dropped to .467 when McNabb wasn’t the starter.
– Marv Levy’s winning percentage with Jim Kelly as quarterback was .631. When Levy coached the Chiefs and the Bills without Jim Kelly as the starting QB, his winning percentage was .442.
– Dan Reeves had a .600 winning percentage with John Elway as his starting QB. And a .467 win% without Elway at the helm.
There are many more examples of this.
– Who drafted Brady? Belichick?
– Who made Brady the starting quarterback when the effective Drew Bledsoe was still an option? That would be Belichick.
– During New England’s nine AFC championship seasons, Belichick’s defense had an average ranking of No. 5 in the league for fewest points allowed. Do ya think that helped the Patriots win some games?
By attributing all of this dominance to Brady, and minimizing the coach’s role in all of the winning, you are making a fairly big assumption here: that Brady would have won six Super Bowls and nine AFC titles no matter who was serving as head coach of the Patriots.
That’s asinine. Brady-Belichick-Defense was a formidable three-part combination, and it all came together for a special time in football history. and Belichick drafted the QB, built those defenses and constructed those terrific teams.
Ah, but what about the SpyGate affair?
Let’s do this!
– Belichick and the Patriots were punished for their transgressions. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell fined Belichick $500,000 and the Patriots $250,000 for videotaping the New York Jets’ sideline early in the 2007 season. The Patriots also had to forfeit their first pick in the 2008 NFL draft. As I said earlier, the Deflate Gate episode was nonsense, but even then Brady was suspended for the first four games of the 2016 season, the franchise was hit with a $1 million fine and the forfeiture of a first-round pick (2016) and a fourth-round pick (2017).
– The NFL was in charge of the discipline. And we can debate if the punishment was sufficient, but it doesn’t matter in this discussion. Why? Because it isn’t the job of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee to administer retroactive justice because (a) the committee wanted to make a statement by blocking him from Canton in his first time on the ballot, and (b) Belichick was mean with reporters.
Just like the baseball writers who are on some sort of ego-boosting morality kick in the Cooperstown Hall of Fame voting, it looks like the football media are joining the saints-only movement by throwing down the morality card to trip Belichick and teach the old grump a lesson.
– This is humorous considering the number of criminals and all-around scalawags that already are enshrined in Canton. To repeat: Canton and Cooperstown – not built to serve as the holy lands of sports purity.
– O.J. Simpson still has his official bust displayed in the glowing Hall of Fame gallery. But yeah, keep Belichick outta there.
– If Belichick needed to cheat to win, then please answer this for me: the SpyGate stink surfaced in 2007. So how did the Patriots win the AFC Championship, Super Bowl, or both five times from 2011 through 2018?
Speaking to a Seattle radio station Wednesday, Tom Brady used the platform to sound off.
“I mean, I was with him everyday,” Brady said. “If he's not a first-ballot Hall of Famer, there's really no coach that should ever be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, which is completely ridiculous because people deserve it. He's incredible. There's no coach I'd rather play for. If I'm picking one coach to go out there to win a Super Bowl -- give me one season -- I'm taking Bill Belichick. So that's enough said."
If you exclude the most successful coach in NFL history from Canton – while so many lesser coaches have already been inducted – then these fools with the oversized egos have managed to cheapen, soil and bring shame on the Hall of Fame … and the stupid thing is, at least some of them thought they were purifying it. This is way, way, way too serious.
My favorite Hall of Fame presentation was made by Ira Miller, a delightfully cranky football writer from San Francisco.
In Joe Montana’s first year of eligibility, it was Ira’s task to make a pitch to the other voters to put the quarterback into the Hall.
Ira stood up. He said this: “It’s Joe Montana, OK? So here’s the deal. I can stand here and make a speech, or we could use the time to go take a piss, because we’ve been talking about these candidates all morning, and I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
Perfect. Everyone laughed.
And we took a bathroom break.
The Belichick discussion (on Zoom) should have gone like this:
“OK, our next candidate is Bill Belichick. Who wants to start the discussion? Let’s begin the review.”
The proper response should have been:
“Are you serious? Are you joking? He’s in. Done. Automatic. Most successful coach in NFL history. Fit him for the gold jacket. What else needs to be said?”
Instead, 11 strident or confused voters unnecessarily created an embarrassing incident that has star athletes and coaches and media everywhere blasting away, non-stop, on social media.
There must be more transparency. All of these ballots must be made public. Those who vote a certain way shouldn’t hide behind secret ballots. If a voter didn’t believe Belichick was worthy of a Hall of Fame honor as a first-time eligible, the voter should remove the mask, find some courage, and explain themselves – even if the explanation is worthless.
But by remaining in the shadows, these anonymous voters are doing something dirty to their colleagues by bringing anger and hatred upon the many voters who rightfully supported Belichick. And that isn’t right. And now we have a WhyGate scandal.
Thanks for reading …
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach.
Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.