Bill Belichick will not be a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer.

ESPN reports the former New England Patriots head coach, and current UNC head coach, fell short of the 40 out of 50 votes needed for enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame during his first year of eligibility.

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Belichick was reportedly “puzzled” and “disappointed” by the development, reportedly asking one associate, “Six Super Bowls isn’t enough?” and “What does a guy have to do?” with a different associate.

Belichick was the only coach among the finalists for enshrinement this year. Other finalists outside of the traditional player pool — headlined by Drew Brees and Eli Manning — are New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and seniors Ken Anderson, Roger Craig and L.C. Greenwood, all of whom also need at least 40 votes. It’s unclear how those other four fared.

Simply stated, the decision is a shocker. No coach in the history of professional football has a résumé better than Belichick, who is the NFL’s all-time leader in Super Bowl titles, postseason wins and division titles, as well as third in regular-season wins. He and Tom Brady turned the New England Patriots into a machine for two decades, and he presided over the league as the standard to which other coaches were compared.

Belichick’s list of rings also expands to eight when you factor in his tenure as New York Giants defensive coordinator under Bill Parcells, who was enshrined in 2013.

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Per ESPN, the reason why Belichick fell short was the Patriots’ history of cheating under his watch. Spygate and Deflategate were both embarrassing spectacles for the Patriots and the NFL. Former executive Bill Polian, who faced off with Belichick’s teams repeatedly as general manager of the Indianapolis Colts, was reported by one voter via ESPN to have told the voting body that Belichick should have to “wait a year” for induction as penance.

“The only explanation [for the outcome] was the cheating stuff,” a veteran Hall voter told ESPN on Tuesday. “It really bothered some of the guys.”

Polian denied ESPN’s report, telling Sports Illustrated’s Matt Verderame that he voted for Belichick and that any claim he tried to influence voters away from Belichick is “totally and categorically untrue.” However, hours later, ESPN updated its article with an interview with Polian, in which the 83-year-old admitted he could not remember with 100% certainty that he voted for Belichick.

If anything, the situation is reminiscent of the many steroid cases that have dominated the discourse around the National Baseball Hall of Fame over the past two decades. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, who have their own overwhelming résumés, never got enough votes in 10 years of BBWAA ballots, and Cooperstown recently changed its rules to prevent cases like them from coming up in the historical committee votes.

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There’s also the case of Carlos Beltran, the veteran outfielder who had a strong case for first-ballot induction but had to wait until his fourth year for enshrinement due to his involvement in the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal.

There are other nitpicks for Belichick’s legacy. His first year as UNC head coach was widely seen as a failure, with a 4-8 record and questions about his fitness for such a job at 73 years old. Brady winning a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after leaving Belichick and the Patriots also caused a shift in their respective reputations, but not nearly enough for Belichick to not be considered an all-time great.

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Whatever the reason, Belichick’s exclusion is sending shockwaves throughout the football world. Not helping the situation is the Hall of Fame’s notoriously opaque voting process. Former Houston Texans star JJ Watt, a future Hall of Famer himself barring a similarly shocking development, was among those questioning Belichick’s exclusion.

Ultimately, the decision says so much more about the Hall of Fame and its voting body than Belichick’s legacy. When the Hall’s Class of 2026 is both announced and enshrined, the voters have essentially guaranteed the conversation will be focused as much on who didn’t make it.