Julian Edelman slams the NFL selection committee as "haters" after the eight-time Super Bowl champion missed first-ballot induction, while North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick shifts focus toward Chapel Hill.
Earlier this year, North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick received a major snub from the NFL Hall of Fame.
Despite winning six Super Bowls as a head coach and two more as an assistant coach, the HOF selection committee didn't put Belichick in this year, meaning the best head coach in league history wasn't good enough to earn first-ballot HOF recognition.
It's a stain on the Hall of Fame, selection committee, and the mostly media personnel who make up the committee.
Former New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman believes Belichick should have been in on the first try.
"That's kind of a joke, no?" Edelman said on "The St. Brown Podcast" recently, via NESN. "It's been funny. I don't know what you have to do to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. It is what it is. There's a bunch of haters out there. The Patriot hate is clearly real. It's real.
"This guy won six Super Bowls as a head coach, two as a coordinator, developed the nickel defense, has the perfect regular season, and has some of the craziest accolades of all time, and he doesn't make it. It just tells me that it's true that there are real haters out there who will just hate on people. It does make you look a little different at the Hall of Fame."
During spring football, Belichick was asked about the Hall of Fame snub. The second-year head coach of the Tar Heels suggested that he was focused on getting UNC on the right path, not about what the NFL committee did a few months ago.
“No, I’m focused on coaching this team and focused on getting Carolina football to the highest level I can,” he said. “I focus on what I can do, and things that are out of my control, I don’t worry about.”
After a 4-8 season in 2025, Belichick has plenty of work to do to turn the Tar Heels into a winner. The former Patriots head coach will eventually make the Hall of Fame, though he’ll never be a first-ballot inductee, which is a stain on the institution in Canton, Ohio.