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The overarching theme I could not ignore when asking some college football coaches and NFL scouts about Bill Belichick’s legacy in the NFL was clear: cheating.
Not his six Super Bowls won as a head coach, not his coaching tree nor his decision to start a former sixth-round NFL Draft pick, Tom Brady, who became the greatest quarterback the sport has ever seen. Belichick’s cheating defines who he is to some in the NFL and college football.
And that seems to be the message this year’s Hall of Fame voters wanted to impart, as Belichick fell short of receiving at least 40 votes of 50, or 80 percent, for Canton as a first-ballot inductee. Now, the former New England Patriots coach and current North Carolina coach will have to wait until at least 2027 to be voted in.
“My personal opinion is I definitely feel like he’s a first-ballot guy,” former New York Giants scout and two-time Super Bowl champion Chris Watts told me. “Regardless of all the negative stuff floating around on him, I feel like he’s earned it.”
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick in 2019. (Photo by Adam Glanzman/Getty Images)
Fans and current and former athletes — including Sanders, Patrick Mahomes, LeBron James and Jimmy Johnson — were shocked by Belichick’s exclusion. Brady was mystified. And those I spoke to Wednesday echoed their sentiments.
“‘That was insane’ was my first thought, given his resume,” a Big 12 position coach told me. “Then I saw the Bill Polian angle, punishing him, even if it’s just for one year, due to the cheating allegations. It’s more symbolic to make him wait, but he’s the greatest of all time.”
“Not sure what to make of it,” a former NFL general manager told me. “It’s not good for the game. The Polian stuff is concerning, if true.”
“How do you ignore getting caught cheating three times?” a former NFL scout during the Patriots’ Belichick era told me. “And twice for the same thing. For those who said the first ‘Spygate’ wasn’t a big deal, why did he keep doing it? That’s a big part of his legacy. … I also don’t believe Polian didn’t tell them he shouldn’t go in on the first ballot.”
[HALL OF FAME: Bill Belichick’s Snub Result of Flawed Voting Process]
Did deciding to pursue faculty soccer harm his NFL legacy? Maybe, however one faculty soccer staffer advised me that should not be an element.
“That sounds loopy that that’s the narrative,” the Energy 4 assistant participant of personnel stated. “How can one season of school have an effect on him on the Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame poll? I believe it’s all about dishonest.”
Perhaps it’s.
Invoice Belichick yells to the referee through the North Carolina-Virginia sport on October 25, 2025 at Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, NC. (Photograph by Nicholas Faulkner/Icon Sportswire through Getty Photographs)
Going 4-8 in his first season as head coach at North Carolina could not have helped him. Months of tabloid headlines about Belichick’s girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, enjoying a not-so-quiet half in constructing the picture of not simply Belichick on Chapel Hill but in addition the Tar Heel soccer program certainly did not assist both.
Nonetheless, if Belichick had completed the 2025 season at 16-0 with a nationwide championship, followers would have topped him as the very best soccer coach — NFL or faculty — who has ever lived. We love a conqueror in soccer, and we take pleasure in watching winners.
And that’s who most individuals imagine Belichick is within the NFL — besides his friends with the facility to vote.
[BELICHICK SNUB: Hall of Fame Voter on Not Voting For Bill Belichick]
This snubbing won’t improve his legacy within the NFL, however it would haven’t any bearing on how he’s remembered in faculty soccer. That half continues to be as much as him.
There’s nonetheless time for Belichick to point out us in faculty soccer that he can coach with the very best in our sport.
There’s nonetheless time for him to benefit from the two-year turnaround Deion Sanders, a first-ballot Professional Soccer Corridor of Famer, loved at Colorado — going from 3-9 to 9-4 with a Heisman Trophy winner in tow.
Now, he is aware of what the league he gave 24 years of his head-coaching life to consider him. We’ll discover out if he coaches in a different way, wins extra or cares much less what faculty soccer does of him, too.
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