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Football chatter leading into Super Bowl LX hasn’t been about the game itself, but rather the news that Bill Belichick, the legendary New England Patriots coach, won’t be entering the Pro Football Hall of Fame on his first ballot.
The backlash received from the news leaking out of Canton has caused the likes of Tom Brady, Robert Kraft, Patrick Mahomes, and many others to express their displeasure with the Hall’s selection committee.
But one former NFL quarterback believes the Hall of Fame can still “rectify” their “egregious mistake.”
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Dan Orlovsky, who now serves as an NFL analyst for ESPN, said on “First Take” Thursday that there is still time to make a change.
PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME ISSUES WARNING TO VOTERS AMID BILL BELICHICK SNUB OUTRAGE
In fact, he implores those with the power to do so.
“What a great opportunity for the Hall of Fame to make it right. And I know that — this isn’t the participation trophy thing are throwing out there. There’s a new voting process. It obviously is flawed,” he said on the program, per Awful Announcing. “Why can’t the Hall of Fame take a step back and say, ‘Let’s check what actually happened out here and make this right.’
“There is not one person who has come out that’s made a justifiable reason for Coach Belichick to not be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. This is obviously a big deal. Unless someone does, why can’t the Hall of Fame take a step back and be like, ‘You know what? We reevaluated. Everyone makes a lot of good points. The process is a flawed process. Let’s make sure that we do this the right way.’ Because the right thing is to have him in as a first-ballot Hall of Famer. I understand that everyone’s in this uproar like, ‘No, you can’t go back. The vote.’ Why not? Why can’t the Hall of Fame do the right thing and realize the egregious mistake that has happened.”
This is obviously something that has never happened for the Hall – changing the results of a vote on a candidate. But Orlovsky doesn’t care what’s happened in the past.
“Just because it’s never happened before doesn’t mean it can’t happen in the future,” he added. “For everyone that sits there and says, ‘Well, personal bias impacted’ — of course, it did. They’re human beings. Trust me, when you vote for awards, bias will play its part. Bad blood should not, and at least by reports, bad blood has played its part in there.
“The other part is this: Who’s next? Who’s next? Who’s going to be the next person to suffer the consequence of, ‘You were mean to me in the locker room?’”
The Kansas City Star’s Vahe Gregorian wrote a column Wednesday revealing he was one of at least 11 Hall of Fame voters who didn’t vote for Belichick. He is the only one who has done so.
While a report stated Belichick’s involvement in scandals with the Patriots, like Spygate and Deflategate could have led to his first-ballot loss, Gregorian, who has been covering the league for nearly 40 years, said he felt “duty-bound” to cast his votes for the senior candidates – Ken Anderson, Roger Craig and L.C. Greenwood – believing they were looking at possibly their last chances to get into the Hall.
Belichick was a part of a five-person pool separate from the 15-man modern-era ballot, in which each voter was tasked with selecting just three members to enter the Hall. Among those are three senior candidates, a contributor, coincidentally enough being Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and a coach.
Can the Hall of Fame rectify the mistake like Orlovsky said? They have the power, but there hasn’t been word they are likely to do so before the news is confirmed on Feb. 5 during the NFL Honors, as the Class of 2026 heading to Canton will be officially revealed.
Belichick has the second-most wins by a head coach of all time, behind only the great Don Shula. Belichick won six Super Bowls in New England and two while a defensive coordinator with the New York Giants.
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