{"id":153845,"date":"2026-01-28T21:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/153845\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T21:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:04:08","slug":"sports-world-reacts-to-bill-belichick-being-snubbed-by-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/153845\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports world reacts to Bill Belichick being snubbed by Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bill Belichick<\/a> is one of the most successful coaches in NFL history.<\/p>\n

He won\u2019t be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n

ESPN broke the news<\/a> Tuesday that Belichick won\u2019t be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. Multiple media outlets have since confirmed the report. The Hall of Fame has declined to comment on its class of 2026 before it is announced Feb. 5 at NFL Honors in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Belichick won six Super Bowls and nine AFC championships as head coach of the New England Patriots<\/a> from 2000-2023. He\u2019s a three-time coach of the year. He has more postseason wins (31) than any other NFL head coach and his 333 wins in the regular season and playoffs \u2014 counting his five seasons as the Cleveland Browns\u2019 head coach from 1991-1995 \u2014 are the second most to Don Shula\u2019s 347. He also won two Super Bowls as the New York Giants defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n

Yet, Belichick was unable to muster the necessary 40 votes from a 50-member selection committee composed of football reporters and other prominent figures in football. The Hall of Fame called Belichick last week to inform him of the result, according to ESPN, which reported that the current North Carolina head coach<\/a> was \u201cpuzzled\u201d and \u201cdisappointed\u201d by the outcome.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not the only one who feels that way. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand it. I mean, I was with him every day,\u201d former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who played 20 seasons under Belichick, told Seattle Sports 710-AM<\/a> on Wednesday. \u201cIf he\u2019s not a first-ballot Hall of Famer, there\u2019s really no coach that should ever be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, which is completely ridiculous because people deserve it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s incredible. There\u2019s no coach I\u2019d rather play for. If I\u2019m picking one coach to go out there to win a Super Bowl, give me one season, I\u2019m taking Bill Belichick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson wrote on X<\/a>: \u201cAs a HOF coach I think Bill Belichick is the greatest of all time\u2026yes he had a great QB but we all did..he won AFTER THE salary cap and free agency plus I Know how much he LOVES THE NFL and the game..I\u2019m pissed..\u201d<\/p>\n

Pro Football Hall of Famer and current Colorado head coach Deion Sanders wrote on X<\/a>: \u201cThe Disrespect to Coach Belichick is straight out IGNORANT! He\u2019s arguably the BEST NFL COACH TO EVER COACH THE GAME! How quickly we forget the impact Coach Belichick made on all of us!\u201d<\/p>\n

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes reposted the news on X<\/a> and wrote, \u201cInsane\u2026 don\u2019t even understand how this could be possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three-time NFL defensive player of the year J.J. Watt wrote on X<\/a>: \u201cI can\u2019t be reading this right. This has to be some knock-off Hall of Fame or something, it can\u2019t be the actual NFL Hall of Fame. There is not a single world whatsoever in which Bill Belichick should not be a First-Ballot Hall of Famer.\u201d<\/p>\n

University of Washington coach Jedd Fisch posted<\/a> a picture of Belichick appearing to wear all eight of his Super Bowl rings and wrote: \u201cThe idea that Coach Belichick is not a first ballot Hall of Famer is ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lakers star LeBron James wrote on X<\/a>: \u201cMan there\u2019s no way I read that right! Right? Ain\u2019t no WAY Bill Belichick ain\u2019t 1st Ballot HOF!! That\u2019s IMPOSSIBLE, EGREGIOUS, and quite frankly DISRESPECTFUL!\u201d<\/p>\n

Two cheating scandals, known as Spygate and Deflategate, took place during Belichick\u2019s tenure with the Patriots. He was fined $500,000 by the NFL for his alleged Spygate involvement during the 2007 season. ESPN reported that the two scandals came up during deliberations among Hall of Fame voters.<\/p>\n

Patriots owner Robert Kraft is also on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year. <\/p>\n

Only three coaches have made the Hall of Fame on first ballot \u2014 Chuck Noll, Tom Landry and Shula \u2014 and they have a combined seven Super Bowl victories. Coaches George Halas and Curly Lambeau were members of the Hall\u2019s inaugural class in 1963. <\/p>\n

Other prominent coaches who weren\u2019t elected the first time they were eligible, but did eventually make the cut, include Johnson, Bill Walsh and Vince Lombardi.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going to get into the Hall of Fame,\u201d Brady said of Belichick. \u201cIn the end, I\u2019m not worried about that. A lot of times in life for all of us things don\u2019t happen exactly how you want them on your timeline, but we\u2019ll all be there to celebrate him when it does happen. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s gonna have a huge turnout from so many players, coaches that appreciated everything that he did and the commitment that he made to winning and the impact that he had on all our lives. And that\u2019ll be a great celebration when it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Belichick is one of the most successful coaches in NFL history. He won\u2019t be a first-ballot Hall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9382,750,75703,2847,75702,5665,75704,24771,13247,48,52,51,47,50,49,75705,59065,75706,2504,30980,315],"class_list":["post-153845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bill-belichick","tag-espn","tag-ever-coach","tag-fame","tag-famer","tag-first-year","tag-football-reporter","tag-hall","tag-head-coach","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-news-tuesday","tag-nfl-history","tag-pro-football-hall","tag-regular-season","tag-scandal","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}