The Pro Football Hall of Fame selection process has been the subject of a rare drama this week as it was reported that legendary head coach Bill Belichick would not be elected in his first year of eligibility.
The thought of the most accomplished coach in the history of the sport not being granted election on the first ballot has led to indignation and disbelief across the sports world. How could this not be an automatic selection? Was Belichick being made an example of? Were people protesting his personality? Was it a message being sent over the Spygate and Deflategate sagas? Who was trying to make a statement? And how couldn’t 40 of 50 selection committee members vote yes for a six-time Super Bowl winning head coach?
After several voters stepped forward to share their own exasperation and their affirmative votes for Bill Belichick, it was naturally only a matter of time before we learned the identities of the 11+ voters who declined to do so. Either they would admit it and reveal their reasoning themselves or we would find out via process of elimination.
The first to step forward publicly with their rationale for not voting for Bill Belichick was Vahe Gregorian of the Kansas City Star.
And in his column explaining his ballot, his reasoning actually holds up.
Gregorian firmly believes that Belichick is a slam dunk Hall of Famer. But in his column, he made the point that the Hall of Fame’s rules lumping together senior candidates along with coaches and contributors ties the hands of voters and leaves out individuals who are deserving, but may have very limited chances at induction.
It wasn’t politics or scandals or anything else. It was simply a numbers game. And in only being able to vote for three candidates, Gregorian chose to vote for three deserving former NFL stars.
In fact, I didn’t vote against Belichick or Kraft. I voted for the three senior candidates: Ken Anderson, Roger Craig and L.C. Greenwood. You could call that rationalizing, I suppose. And I’m suddenly reminded of the fortune cookie wisdom that you should never try to explain, since your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway.
Anderson, Craig, and Greenwood racked up 14 Pro Bowls between them and are generally regarded as three of the all-time greats not enshrined in Canton. And because of the Hall’s stringent election process, Gregorian alluded to a backlog of deserving senior candidates that have been snubbed for years and have seen their chances of election fade away. He cited 60 All-Decade players that are still awaiting their call to Canton because of the massive pool of worthy former stars that have been passed over.
And for that reason, Gregorian said that his ballot was not a vote against Bill Belichick, but rather the best he could do with a flawed system.
All of that went into why I felt duty-bound to vote for the richly deserving seniors, who most likely won’t ever have a hearing again as more senior candidates enter the pool and fresh cases get made for others. Meanwhile, Belichick is inevitable soon … as he should be. At the risk of contradicting my own vote, really, he shouldn’t even have to wait. I understand why people are offended that he isn’t going in the first moment he can.
In the end, though, I felt more compelled by what I perceive to be last chances and looming lost causes within the system as we have it — a system I hope the Hall will see fit to change now.
Hearing this case from a voter, it’s now a lot more understandable what actually happened here, at least from someone who clearly respects his position as a Hall of Fame voter and takes it seriously. There was no agenda here and no message being sent, but an acknowledgement that maybe the hall itself is the one responsible for a voting system that leaves even the surest of candidates having to wait their turn for others who have more pressing candidacies.
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