North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick didn't make the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2026. Was there collusion involved in the committee's choice to leave him out?
Per Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick received 39 votes to enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Belichick needed 40 to cross the 80 percent threshold to become an inductee.
There have been a few reasons given for why the committee couldn't reach the 40 votes Belichick needed to be a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee.
The "Spygate" controversy was a focal point during deliberations with the committee. Some voters didn't like the rule change that allowed a head coach to enter the Hall of Fame one year after not coaching.
Other voters had a bleeding heart for senior candidates, choosing to vote for players they felt should enter the Hall of Fame rather than casting a ballot based on merit.
Former NFL sports agent Ben Dogra brought up the elephant in the room about the entire situation. He suggested there could have been collusion among the committee to keep Belichick from earning the nomination on the first ballot.
"These old school guys simply don’t understand they can’t make the rules fit the narrative they desire," Dogra posted on his Facebook page. "There was collusion here and an agenda to fit their own narrative.
"And now if impacts the HOF’ers of the past, the present, and certainly the future."
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk was able to get ahold of the committee bylaws. One of the bylaws is rather curious and vaguely written, and seems to allow for collusion to occur as long as it is not done in a "quid pro quo manner."
“5. Refrain from any pre-meeting collusion that attempts to secure votes for a candidate or candidates in a quid pro quo manner," the bylaw states.
It's very possible that there was collusion between voters to keep Belichick from entering the Hall of Fame this year. The fact that Belichick was kept out by one vote makes the collusion theory even more curious.
Dogra argued for the bylaws to change and for the Hall of Fame to make the voting transparent so the institution would have integrity again.
"The bylaws need to be changed to give credibility back to the HOF and out of hands of the so-called writers who have long faded into the sunset and are no longer relevant in their profession," Dogra wrote.
"Make the voting transparent and open and kick off any members who don’t adhere to the rules."
The Hall of Fame needs to reconsider its process. The rule changes that led to Belichick missing out on being a first-ballot inductee have hurt the prestige of the institution.