According to a bombshell ESPN revelation, six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach Bill Belichick will not make the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year on the ballot, reportedly in part as a belated punishment for the Spygate and Deflategate scandals during his time with the New England Patriots.

If that stands, and Belichick does end up having to wait to get into Canton despite an all-time great resume, it begs the question of what will happen in 2028 when Tom Brady is eligible for the Hall for the first time.

Brady was there for Spygate and was heavily involved in Deflategate. And if that’s going to be a factor in keeping Belichick out, it stands to reason it might be used to keep Brady out, at least for a year, as well.

If rumors are true and Bill Polian led the charge of Belichick waiting because of Deflategate and Spygate does that mean that Tom Brady has to wait too?

Because ain’t no fricking way Tom is waiting or should wait… and neither should Bill!

— Ryan Clark (@Realrclark25) January 27, 2026

In 2015, an NFL report concluded that Brady was generally aware of the intentional deflation of footballs during the 2014 AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts. Brady was suspended for four games based on “substantial and credible evidence” that he knew Patriots employees were deflating footballs and for being uncooperative with the investigators.  NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell upheld Brady’s four-game suspension following an appeal. However, a judge later vacated Brady’s suspension, allowing Brady to play in the first four games of the 2015 NFL season. Then, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reinstated Brady’s four-game suspension, which he served at the start of the 2016 season. The NFL was later accused of falsifying data and hiding information that would have cleared Brady and the Patriots of wrongdoing. Brady led the Patriots to a Super Bowl victory and was named Super Bowl MVP.

Bill Polian, who was the Colts’ President from 1998 to 2011, is reportedly among the Hall of Fame voters who wanted to punish Belichick by making him wait a year for his induction due to his involvement in Spygate, the 2007 cheating scandal in which the Patriots were penalized for illegally filming New York Jets coaches’ defensive signals from an unauthorized location. ESPN’s report also cites Deflategate among the reasons for not giving Belichick the nod this year.

We’ll see how all of this plays out. It’s entirely possible that public sentiment or the NFL attempts to sway the committee into changing its decision on Belichick. But assuming, for now, that it stands, it does make one wonder whether Brady, who currently works as an NFL analyst for Fox and is a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, could face a similar punishment despite being the most decorated quarterback in NFL history. Then again, the rules don’t often apply to Brady the way they do to anyone else, so who knows.

Ironically, it stands to reason that Patriots owner Robert Kraft might get into the Hall of Fame thanks to the dynasty Belichick and Brady built before both of them.