{"id":710945,"date":"2026-01-28T07:35:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T07:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/710945\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T07:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T07:35:15","slug":"speculation-swirls-that-colts-hall-of-fame-gm-bill-polian-helped-dissuade-bill-belichick-from-joining-on-1st-ballot-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/710945\/","title":{"rendered":"Speculation swirls that Colts Hall of Fame GM Bill Polian helped dissuade Bill Belichick from joining on 1st-Ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">\u201cMultiple sources told ESPN that Spygate and Deflategate, the twin cheating scandals during the Patriots\u2019 championship run, came up in deliberations among voters. A voter who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Polian, an ardent Kraft supporter and former general manager of the Buffalo Bills and Indianapolis Colts &#8212; a chief Patriots rival during their dynasty &#8212; told some voters he believed Belichick should \u2018wait a year\u2019 before induction as penance for Spygate, the 2007 cheating scandal that cost the team a first-round draft pick. Commissioner Roger Goodell also fined the Patriots $500,000 and fined Belichick $250,000.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">\u201cThe only explanation [for the outcome] was the cheating stuff,\u201d a veteran Hall voter told ESPN on Tuesday. \u201cIt really bothered some of the guys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMultiple sources told ESPN that Spygate and Deflategate, the twin cheating scandals during the Patriots\u2019 championship run, came&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[2005,7,2004,392,3562,2381,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-710945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-colts","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-indianapolis","11":"tag-indianapolis-colts","12":"tag-indianapolis-colts-news","13":"tag-indianapoliscolts","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115971577233164203","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}