Bill Belichick\u2019s reported snub\u00a0from the Pro Football Hall of Fame after winning a record six Super Bowl titles as a head coach has placed\u00a0new scrutiny on the process\u00a0of picking pro football Hall of Famers.<\/p>\n
While the specific reasons that Belichick didn\u2019t get into the Hall in his first year of eligibility are unknown, there are some possible explanations why at least 11 of the 50 voters didn\u2019t vote for one of the sport\u2019s most accomplished coaches.<\/p>\n
Belichick\u2019s role in the \u201cSpygate\u201d scandal in 2007 could have had a similar impact on his candidacy that steroids have had in the baseball Hall of Fame at keeping stars such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens out of Cooperstown.<\/p>\n
The rule changes put in place last year by the Hall also could have played a part, including possible frustration from some voters about the decision to eliminate the five-year waiting period for coaches that made Belichick eligible for the ballot after sitting out only one season as an NFL coach.<\/p>\n
The changes also made it more difficult for anyone \u2014 Belichick included \u2014 to get into the Hall as evidenced by only\u00a0four people getting voted in last year\u00a0for the smallest class in 20 years. Coaches are now competing directly with players in the seniors category instead of being judged on their own.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a look at how the new rules have impacted the voting:<\/p>\n
How do coaches become finalists?<\/p>\n
Along with eliminating the five-year waiting period, coaches also were separated from contributors in terms of becoming finalists. A blue-ribbon committee whittles the coaches down to one finalist, with\u00a0Belichick getting the nod this year. The one coach was grouped with one contributor, which was\u00a0Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and three senior players who haven\u2019t played in the past 25 seasons. Ken Anderson, Roger Craig and L.C. Greenwood are the finalists this year.<\/p>\n
What about the modern era players?<\/p>\n
The biggest group of finalists comes from the modern era category, with\u00a015 players picked\u00a0after a process of cutting down nominees started with a screening committee that picks 50 nominees. The full 50-person selection committee cuts that down to 25 semifinalists and then 15 finalists, with any player who made it to the final seven and didn\u2019t get in last year guaranteed a spot in the final 15.<\/p>\n
The selection committee consists of 50 voters, with 32 picked as media representatives of each team and the rest consisting of at-large voters, including some Hall of Famers such as Bill Polian, Tony Dungy, Dan Fouts and James Lofton. All the voters got on a video conference earlier this month, with one voter making a presentation and others then allowed to offer their opinions in a debate. The vote is conducted by secret ballot, with the results announced Feb. 5 at “NFL Honours” in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
The threshold to get into the Hall is 80 per cent \u2014 40 of the 50 voters \u2014 but it\u2019s not as simple as an up-or-down vote.<\/p>\n
Before the rule changes last year, five modern era finalists were picked to have an up-or-down vote, as well as the senior finalists and any coach or contributor who made it to the final stage. That typically led to five modern era players getting in with most \u2014 but not all \u2014 of the seniors, coaches and contributors also getting in.<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s much more difficult.<\/p>\n
The voters will cut down the list of modern era candidates from 15 to 10 and then seven. A final vote will be held for those seven, with each voter allowed to vote for only five players. If some candidates, such as Drew Brees and Larry Fitzgerald, get wide support, that would leave fewer available votes for any other potential candidates in the final seven to get to 80 per cent. That led to only three modern era players \u2014 Eric Allen, Jared Allen and Antonio Gates \u2014 getting in last year.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a similar process for the seniors, coaches and contributors. Voters can vote for only three of the final finalists, with the top vote-getter and anyone else who gets 80% support getting into the Hall. Sterling Sharpe was the only person to reach that threshold last year from the group of finalists, while players Maxie Baughan and Jim Tyrer, coach Mike Holmgren and contributor Ralph Hay fell short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Belichick\u2019s reported snub\u00a0from the Pro Football Hall of Fame after winning a record six Super Bowl titles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-439684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}