{"id":735942,"date":"2026-02-07T15:51:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/735942\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T15:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:51:19","slug":"football-hall-of-fame-planning-voting-changes-after-bill-belihcick-snub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/735942\/","title":{"rendered":"Football Hall of Fame planning voting changes after Bill Belihcick snub"},"content":{"rendered":"

It looks like the Pro Football Hall of Fame could be regretting not letting Bill Belichick in on the first try<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hall of Fame President Jim Porter told ESPN<\/a> on Friday that the institution could be making some tweaks to its voting process for next year\u2019s class. But he insisted that the potential changes are not a direct result of Belichick\u2019s snub.<\/p>\n

Porter said the Hall of Fame plans to return to in-person voting and discussion for the committee after it was moved to a virtual meeting room in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\"TVBill Belichick looks on during the first half of Indiana\u2019s win over Miami in the College Football Playoff National Championship game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

The vote likely would occur closer to the reveal at the NFL Honors in an attempt to thwart the leaks prior to the event.<\/p>\n

Porter added that the 50-member voting committee would consider the release of individual ballots and vote totals in the future, but will not for this year\u2019s class.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Porter said that HOF would be looking into voters who might have violated the rules by revealing the off-record debate about potential candidates to the public and could replace those who did<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not here to tell them who the most deserving is,\u201d Porter told ESPN<\/a>. \u201cIf the Hall was to tell who the most deserving is, we wouldn\u2019t need them to vote. We understand that. We just want the rules followed.\u201d<\/p>\n

This comes as some voters have expressed their frustrations over rule changes last year that groups senior players \u2014 who have been retired for at least 25 years \u2014 along with coaches and contributors, making it more difficult for candidates to reach the required 80 percent threshold to gain entry.<\/p>\n

\"AAn employee clears snow at the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Jan. 26. 2026. Kevin Whitlock \/ Massillon Independent \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Belichick\u2019s miss marks three straight years in which no coach has gotten into the Hall of Fame, sparking a debate over whether the process should be changed to separate coaches and contributors from the seniors.<\/p>\n

Porter, however, did not indicate that part of the process would be changed, citing that coaches and contributors were grouped with players for over five decades before changes about 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is, what changed?\u201d Porter said. \u201cWhat was it that the selectors could do that for the 50-some years but now can\u2019t. They could get the right person in that didn\u2019t require a category. I don\u2019t know. We\u2019ll find it out. We\u2019ll talk to a lot of people. \u2026 But there\u2019s a responsibility there. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe responsibility is to pick the most deserving. They got down to where that number was. So my question is, is everybody picking the most deserving.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It looks like the Pro Football Hall of Fame could be regretting not letting Bill Belichick in on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[3851,7,6,1371,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-735942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-bill-belichick","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pro-football-hall-of-fame","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116030150711627165","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735942","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=735942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}