MIKE BURKE

Allegany Communications Sports

Everyone has their drawers in a bunch because it is being reported that Bill Belichick isn’t going to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. As though there aren’t enough things in the world these days to be outraged about. This is what happens when it’s so cold and there’s too much snow outside to even want to leave the house. Or, in this instance, the screen of your device.

Hall of Fame voting in every sport is flawed at best, but no Hall of Fame voting in sports is as screwed up and more suspicious than that of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, as we have discussed here even semi-recently. Remember Joe Jacoby? Neither do the Pro Football Hall of Fame voters.

The football Hall adopted stricter rules for selection last year, as this was the first year a candidate needed 40 of a panel of 50 voters to gain entry. But that has nothing to do with this, as Belichick, 73, won six Super Bowls as a head coach and two more as a defensive coordinator. He has 302 regular-season wins, good for third all-time behind Don Shula and George Halas and also won 31 postseason games, the most of any coach. Yes, that’s as Hall of Fame as it gets.

Then again, there is not one, but two cheating scandals for which Belichick and his Patriots were caught red-handed – Spygate and Deflategate, although the coach was not directly involved with Deflategate. That centered around the untouchable (in every way) pretty-boy quarterback. But Belichick was, in fact, the head coach.

(And why is “gate” always used for a scandal? Not even the Watergate scandal had anything to do with a gate other than the name of the hotel where Nixon and his feared Plumbers Squad got caught red-handed themselves. And as illegal as that was, would it even register now?)

Funny thing (or is it?), Belichick was up for election with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who himself owns anything but a Hall of Fame past, unless it’s the Hall of Fame on a place like the Block (not that there’s anything wrong with the Block), and whose relationship with Belichick went down the drain when the coach and the team parted ways in 2024.

ESPN reported that former Bills and Colts general manager, and Kraft supporter, Bill Polian told voters Belichick deserved to wait a year as punishment for Spygate. Polian has since refuted the report, saying he voted for Belichick, but that, yes, the idea was “floated” in the voting room.

Now the outraged are demanding the names of the voters who did not vote for Belichick become public, but why? If all of this is true (there has still been no official announcement), what difference will having names make? Do we egg their houses if we get their names, or just troll them on social media?

We should respect different opinions, though this is more like a trip to the penalty box rather than an opinion, because, of course, Belichick should be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. That he cheated, and got caught doing it, to win two Super Bowls speaks to his character, and if that is why he wasn’t voted in, big deal. I don’t think his girlfriend is going to leave him over it.

We have lost our sense of valuing character as a society. Look at what’s happening politically and what it’s doing to our nation. It seems a lot of fans and NFL people are pulling the cancel culture card and for what? Because he’s not a first-ballot Hall of Famer? He’ll get in.

Baseball’s all-time hits leader, Pete Rose, is not in the Hall of Fame because he broke the cardinal rule. Baseball’s all-time home run leader, Barry Bonds, is not in the Hall of Fame because he broke the rules before they were actually rules. A seven-time Cy Young Award winner, Roger Clemens, is not in the Hall of Fame because he broke the rules after they became rules.

The voting for the baseball Hall and the football Hall are every bit as different from each other as George Carlin described the actual games as being in his brilliant soliloquy many years ago.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame has a morality clause clearly listed in its criteria. The Pro Football Hall of Fame does not.

Baseball Hall of Fame voters are the baseball writers and more of them seem to vote with integrity than some others do. It’s a more individual kind of voting and most voters make their votes public.

Then there is corporate or bully voting, which is what the football Hall of Fame voting has always been. It’s done in groups and committees behind closed doors and the league, and its most influential owners, who probably don’t want to share the spotlight with any old coach over Super Bowl weekend when the voting is announced, has their say as to who gets in, and, in this case, who does not.

That’s what it seems has happened here to Belichick.

Just as Roberto Alomar and Carlos Beltran were denied first-ballot Hall of Fame entry in baseball for spitting on an umpire and for a major cheating scandal respectively, they were eventually allowed entry – Alomar, a sure-fire first-balloter, on his second ballot.

Bill Belichick will get into the Hall of Fame. The NFL will see to it. He’s just not going to be allowed to crash Robert Kraft’s party when the Patriots play in the Super Bowl next week.

The NFL has already seen to that.

Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT