Former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is wearing a lot of hats right now as Fox Sports lead analyst and minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, but if there’s one thing he remembers about from his playing days, it’s the importance of his former coach, Bill Belichick, to his career.
Brady became the latest to weigh in on Belichick being snubbed by Hall of Fame voters recently, and for once he spoke his mind and didn’t hold back.
"I don't understand it," said Brady, who played under Belichick for 20 seasons with the New England Patriots in a piece from ESPN. "I mean, I was with him everyday. If he's not a first-ballot Hall of Famer, there's really no coach that should ever be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, which is completely ridiculous because people deserve it.”
Brady added that there’s no coach he’d rather play for, and that if he’s picking one coach to win a Super Bowl—which he’ll recalling for Fox in a week and half—it would be Belichick. Which makes a ton of sense
New England owner Robert Kraft has had his share of issues with Belichick in the last few years, but he, too, issued a statement. Indeed, the condemnation of this snub has been so universal that you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone to support it—aside from the 11 voters who left Belichick off their ballot, of course.
From the Raiders perspective, Brady is learning the hard way how difficult it can be to find a coach to lead his team. He’s the minority owner of a bad team, and he’s been charged with the job of finding that team’s next coach.
It’s a daunting task, and it speaks to the monumental nature of what Belichick accomplished. It’s hard to find Hall of Fame talent when most coaches won’t even interview with you because of your team’s bad reputation.
But Brady saved his most scathing comments for the voting process. No one knows exactly what happened yet, but Brady has his own ideas about that.
"When it comes down to votes and popularity and all that, then welcome to the world of voting," Brady said. "You might as well try out for the Oscars and get a big panel to tell you if you're good or not. It's the way that it works unfortunately.”
Brady isn’t worried about Belichick getting in, and he said that directly at the end of his statement. Everyone knows how voting goes in MLB’s Hall of Fame, as writers involved in that process regularly left great plates off their ballots to keep them from being voted in unanimously.
This is worse, though. This is a man who won six Super Bowls, even if he dealt a lot of his colleagues dirty along the way. It really is amazing how petty the whole matter is, and it’s sparking a series of sharp reactions from stars who rarely say anything controversial about anything.