Belichick Gets Snubbed
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.
Russell Wilson is playing himself out of the Hall and Belichick coached himself out of it, simple as. He could’ve retired after Brady left New England but instead he stuck around and showed the world he was a bus rider and Tom was responsible for the whole dynasty. Even the two giants rings he had LT. Zero of his rings came without the greatest defensive player ever or the greatest offensive player ever. Well-under-.500 head coaching record without Tom Brady. The Pats were actually performing worse under him than they had with Carroll until Brady came along.
Fraud exposed, court dismissed.
The original dynasty til 04 Brady was a good but not great QB. They won those titles on Belicheck’s defense, leg of Vinatieri and Brady not making mistakes.
Especially their first run.
Don’t feed the low effort trolls. It’s just not worth it.
Plus judging by his response, it seems he’s just looking to start an argument seeing how he ignored Bennie’s post.
I’m just retarded.
It sounded like you have taken the original version of a certain Black Eyed Peas song too seriously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0&pp=ygURZGVjYWx0aGxvbiBpbnN1bHTSBwkJkQoBhyohjO8%3D
I see a lot of responses yet no arguments!
Why won’t anyone argue with me? That bait is perfect? Am I not good enough you Belichick lovers?
Argue with me damn it!
The entire point of a Hall of Fame is massively stupid. Yes, it’s supposedly a great honour, but come on, deciding who is greater than other greats by a vote of biased muppets and putting their busts into a weird building in the middle of Ohio that only people from Ohio and mad fans visit is nuts. There MUST be better ways to remember the greats.
I like the idea of the hall, but it’s very silly in reality. I think it’s got a *little bit* more credibility than the rock & roll hall of fame, but only because I think the idea of a “hall of fame” goes against what rock & roll is all about imo, but that’s neither here nor there.
That said, I don’t really have a better solution in mind
The Football Hall of Fame is much better than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If I had to use an analogy, it would be like if the football HoF had more Canadian and XFL players than NFL.
I think the All-Time/All-Decades teams are your answer to how to best remember the greats.
Plus, all-time teams can’t get diluted the way some sports Hall of Fames can. And maybe I’m projecting too early, but I have a feeling that the NFL HOF will be diluted with QB’s in the next decade or so
Serious suggestion:
There should be a “hall of shame” for exceptionally bad players/coaches/ownership. People vote them in while they are still active & at the peak of their unpopularity. Then, over time, people can vote them OUT of the hall of shame
Culverhouse stays.
All it needs is enough people paying attention. I’m no expert on how to get there but we could at least start Hall Of Shame debates on social media over ranking guys like Roethlisberger and Watson, or fans with crappy owners debating the hall, god knows I see them cursing Woody or whoever enough to get Hall momentum going just from that energy.
Make it an idea first like the Mount Rushmore debates.
The point of the hall of fame is to honor the greatest of the great players. The problem is that people have corrupted the honor and the election process to mean more than it really does.
As you say, you’re either a hall of famer or you’re not. The problem is that people apply weight to getting in on the first election, getting in unanimously, receiving votes at all even if you don’t actually get in, etc. And the electors now respect those stupid honors instead of focusing simply on the yes/no they’re supposed to.
So you end up with voters saying things like “bill belichick is obviously going to get in, so I’m gonna spend my 3 votes on these guys who definitely don’t deserve to be in the hall, but that I think deserve the respect of getting at least 1 vote.”
The problem isn’t, strictly speaking, the process. It’s the people. It should be “vote for everyone you think is a hall of famer”, and the electors should be exceptionally selective. There shouldn’t be a limit, the people in charge of voting should just be really picky.
I would actually be willing to make unanimity a requirement. The hall of fame should be extremely exclusive, and if anyone can make a genuine argument that a person doesn’t belong, that alone is probably reason for them to be excluded.
This might turn into the opposite problem where nobody gets selected at all, and baseball already has a stubborn no unanimous vote thing that everyone hates except the dipshits who keep doing it
I think very, very few people are worthy of unanimous votes. If Belichick wasn’t good enough to pass the current system, basically nobody is good enough to pass a unanimous system. One asshole with a grudge could keep Belichick out for years. Then you also have the issue of everyone who already got in the hall who absolutely wouldn’t get in under the new system, and that won’t seem fair to modern players
That’s fair. Though it returns to the issue I mentioned: it’s a people problem, not a process problem. If one asshole with a grudge is holding belichick out, then that asshole doesn’t belong on the committee
I think the problem is still kind of systemic in that case, because it once again comes down to people utilizing a strict arbitrary system requirement in regards to their personal biases.
I think your original idea is still the best solution. Vote for whoever you want, no limit, but the threshold of votes a person has to reach should be pretty high, like 80-90% of voters should have to vote for you to pass. That way a few biased writers can be “margin of errored” away into the ether.
My only really concern would be the first one or two years under this system might flood the hall with like 20 guys in one class, so maybe restrict the first class to 10 guys, then open it up after that to minimize the flood. Honestly there is a part of me that thinks the current system would be fine if they simply expanded the class size to 10 potential dudes instead of five so that these weird bottlenecks hold fewer people back
Cynically speaking, Halls of Fame are about selling tickets to banquets and ceremonies and exhibit halls. A less cynical and more grounded take on them is that they exist to celebrate people that the community around the sport wants to celebrate (which, you know, sells tickets to stuff). People get elected to HOFs because other people like to talk too them or about them, basically… which is why baseball’s numerous pariahs remain so, despite their Hall-worthy accomplishments too many folks would rather not think about their missteps.
I think this largely fine, too. Finding Craig Biggio’s career worth celebrating in Cooperstown isn’t really an afront to Rogers Hornsby. Very very few “borderline” HOF cases weren’t truly excellent players who were important to impactful and winning teams, weren’t players who meant a lot to fans and the sport’s community.
Nothing about this view of the Hall of Fame would seem to make Belichick a less attractive Hall candidate, though, which is the primary angle where I find this situation to be surprising.
I honestly don’t think this is like bonds or Clemens. Baseball’s good ol boys are quite a bit more idealistic than football’s, which is part of it, but really the problem for them is that they believe the steroid guys fundamentally damaged the game itself. No one really thinks that of belichick. They just thinking he cheated.
No, The reason belichick missed the hall is simple: a number of people responsible for deciding whether he gets in dislike him personally.
If everything about belichick were exactly the same as it is, but he spent his career being nice and friendly with the media, he’d be in.
I doubt that; the reason Bonds isn’t in the Hall is almost entirely because he hated the media and the media hated him. If nothing else it’s hard to believe that Baseball’s good ole boys actually think that steroids damaged the game when they promoted and celebrated the results of steroids for over a decade, only to turn around and pretend that we all had no idea what was going on in 1998.
in a respect that actually makes him very similar to belichick
Not to mention they elected Pudge in first ballot and the guy’s suspected PEDs use is kind of an open secret if what Canseco claimed is anything to go by.
I remember hearing for years that Jack (“played in a superbowl on a broken leg”) Youngblood and Carl Eller (probably the most intimidating Purple People Eater), both worthy HOF defensive linemen were kept out of the hall by blocs of people both determined that the most important thing was their guy of the two got in before the other. Which is insane. The deadlock finally broke after about a decade with the Youngblood camp agreeing to vote for Eller so that Youngblood could get in the following year.
I understand wanting to limit the number of people inducted every year so you don’t flood the hall, but I agree with Dave. Obviously the system is broken if it results in Belicheck not getting in on the first ballot.
I think they should keep a threshold (maybe not 80%), while removing a hard cap. That way it will still be selective, without bottlenecks and without making it all about the first ballot.
Even baseball HOF voting lets voters choose up to 10 entries.
I think they way to do it would be to have a simple yes\no and remove the last round or two of cutdown
Just making it yes\no with current system would increase the hall bc your effectively voting against guys.
If you increase the ballot to have obvious non HOF then there is less of an issue voting no.
The cutdown thing isn’t used for coaches/contributors/sr selectees.
There’s just a committee that says “one coach, one contributor, and three sr players.” Those five players go to the 50 electors who get to pick at most three of them. They must get 40 or more votes to go into the hall of fame.
This is something the hall of fame players like Deion set up because they felt it was “being cheapened”, so they basically made a category that is next to impossible to get out of, as opposed to the players votes and cutdowns to five, all of which get up or down votes and have to meet the same 80%.
The changes have basically made it so you’re either excluding players who deserve it, or you’re excluding coaches who deserve it.
Also owners, coaches, execs, and old players are all lumped together and under the same 5-person limit for some reason. A recently retired coach shouldn’t be up against a trio of decades-past-retirement players, it’s apples and oranges
Still waiting for Steve Tasker to get his due. Dude made them rework the entire rules of the game.
Still waiting for poor Steve Tasker to get in. Best Special Teams guy of all time, made them rewrite the rules, and he still isn’t in because of bullshit HoF reasons.
Kraft didn’t get in this time, either!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I’m conflicted. Belichick does indeed deserve to be a first ballot inductee. But as a Steeler fan in Nebraska, I would be more than happy LC Greenwood & Roger Craig get in because of this.
Bill definitely deserves to be in there, but I’ll admit I laughed out loud when I heard he didn’t. Some people love him, some people don’t.
The thing I don’t like, is this.
“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.”
Why did they change it so coaches only have a 1 year waiting period? Sorry, Rivers voids his eligibility after 4.5 years? But coaches, who routinely take a year off, can get selected? Tomlin can be inducted next year, and go back to coaching the year after?
And why do owners apparently not have one? That’s elitist crap. You want to hang around as an owner until you die? *looks over at Dallas* Good for you. But then you don’t get to be inducted.
The group with the shortest career windows, and don’t have the option to take a year or three off, have to wait the longest? Bleh.
I wonder if these comics featuring “SportsBarf” will finally be tagged “SportsBarf.”
It’s not a coincidence that voters are only given three votes and there are three sr. players in the category. It’s not a coincdence that there’s only one coach and one contributor put up every year. This is designed to keep coaches and contributors out and sr players in. It’s working exactly as they intended.
All the more reason to think the whole thing is trash, because it is trash.
I get punishing him for spygate, and that’s fine, but what about other teams that have done the same thing? The Giants knew the Vikings signals in the Conference Championship and never faved any punishment for it.