The Draw Play

There’s a part of me that wants to start a conspiracy theory that Jordon Hudson’s newest PR move is to pull strings and influence HoF voters enough to accidentally snub Belichick from being a first ballot hall of famer. This has unironically been the most positive press he’s had for several years. Everyone can’t stop glazing our favorite sugar daddy.

And rightfully so! All this did was highlight once again how broken and stupid the hall of fame selection process is. If Bill fucking Belichick isn’t a first ballot hall of famer, then the honor has no meaning. What we instead have done is highlight how petty grivances in sportswriters can fester into bullshit or how an archaic and convoluted system of voting systemically harms candidates. No one in their right mind thinks Bill Belichick is not a hall of famer. If you meet someone who genuinely believes that, due to spygate or whatever, that person is stupid and should have all their opinions thrown in the trash compactor henceforth. Bill Belichick is one of the greatest coaches in football history and the game would not exist as it is without him.

I spoke on this last year when the HoF made their selection process even worse. The arbitrary inductee limit has resulted in this systemic failure and a more exclusive hall of fame. It feels now like the “true” hall of fame is being “first ballot”. It’s an extra honor that only exists because of the stupid selection process. Your guy might be a hall of famer, but was he worth going in on his first eligible moment? This is astronomically stupid. Either a guy is a hall of famer, or he isn’t. Put him in, or keep him out. Instead, you now have situations where voters are trying to strategically use votes to squeeze in guys. The first person to admit to not voting for Belichick fell into this systemic trap. Kansas City Star writer Vahe Gregorian explained his non-vote. He voted for 3 guys who have been eligible for much longer, and snubbed for much longer. His vote was not against Belichick, but for these other long-snubbed guys who he felt were more in need of his support. This entire problem wouldn’t exist if the Hall’s voting process weren’t stupid as hell. Roger Craig and Bill Belichick should both be in the hall of fame, and we shouldn’t be limiting who gets the honor. We are wasting everyone’s time.

Of course, that’s a reasonable and perfectly understandable snub. The logic Vahe used makes sense. He assumed Belichick was a shoe-in, and used his votes for people he felt were being left behind. We can probably assume a few other voters did the same thing. But we know a few others are probably idiots or petty. We have one other confirmed non-vote. Longtime Indianapolis Colts (a red flag in this context) writer Mike Chappell explained his non-vote for Belichick as a vote FOR Robert Kraft. I’m sorry, but putting Kraft on your ballot over Belichick is nonsense. Kraft is important to the Patriots current existence (but so is Belichick), and Kraft helped “negotiate the labor stoppage in 2011 despite his wife being gravely ill”. He then quotes Spygate as a problem. Robert “Florida Strip Mall Handjob” Kraft gets your vote before possibly the best coach of all time? Because his wife was sick and he spent his time negotiating football instead? These goofballs are the people who are voting in this broken system that spreads useful votes thin and creates these pointless bottlenecks for deserving individuals that drag on for years, even decades. These bottlenecks can last long enough that some people have been voted in posthumously, when they could have experienced the honor while still alive.

There is also the theory that Kraft had something to do with the snub, that he pulled strings to prevent Belichick from sharing his special day. I know those two are on bad terms now, but I doubt this is true. If it is, Robert “mentioned in the Epstein Files” Kraft deserved even less respect. It seemed like Brady and Belichick also parted on bad terms, but Brady publicly came to Belichick’s defense after the snub, and I believe him to be truthful in his words.

As far as I see it, there simply should not be a limit. Every person eligible should be eligible, and if they pass a threshold of votes, they are hall of famers. Voters are not limited to a small number of votes, they can vote for as many guys as they want. Those guys just have to reach enough votes to get in. This way, if a guy is a hall of famer, but maybe has less of a resume than another guy, he won’t get snubbed because the other guy deserves the limited vote more. Or a guy who has been waiting too long ends up getting the pity votes needed to be enshrined, while snubbing a new guy in the process. This might result in bigger classes (if implemented, the first new class or two might end up huge), but it will largely alleviate this stupid bottleneck problem. They could also roll out a progressive expansion of classes to prevent a massive flood of inductees but still ease the bottleneck over the course of a few years. I am okay with the 5-year waiting period for eligibility just in case we get more Philip Rivers types, and to help with inductee spacing out.

Belichick, despite the severely overblown spygate scandal, the non-entity deflategate ended up being, and the general failures of his final seasons, is a hall of famer. That this situation exists is a stupid joke for everyone involved. Fix the fucking hall.