Bill Belichick is a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Another coach who’s laying the foundation for a bronze bust of his own hopes Belichick will return to pro football.
“I’ll be honest with you, I miss him not being in the league,” Broncos coach Sean Payton told reporters on Wednesday. “I miss him not being in the league, and I wouldn’t be surprised, and I would be somewhat hopeful that he ends up back in the league. We’d all be better for it. He’s something.”
Belichick’s buyout costs a miniscule, for NFL owners, $1 million. But there’s no clear indication that anyone would want to hire him, given the latter years of his time in New England (which included putting a defensive coach in charge of the offense), the pettiness he and his consigliere, Mike Lombardi, have displayed toward the Patriots specifically and the NFL generally, his 2025 performance at North Carolina, the baggage and distractions he’d bring with him in a return to the pro game, and his reputation for hoping to take over the entire football operation in lieu of simply coaching the team.
Belichick should have a no-debate, no-brainer case for Canton. He should automatically gain entry. He’s one of the greatest coaches in NFL history. Failure to put him in immediately would undermine the credibility of the entire selection process.
That doesn’t mean Belichick currently is a viable candidate to become an NFL head coach.
Still, 31 teams can say “no way.” It only takes one to whisper, “Why not?”
The college game clearly isn’t for Belichick. For plenty of pro teams that haven’t won many games in recent years, they could do a lot worse than Belichick. And they have.
It nevertheless feels like an uphill climb. Which creates an interesting irony. It will be much easier for Belichick to gain a spot among the all-time immortals than it will be for him to get another opportunity to coach one of the NFL’s franchises.
While he’s currently the head coach at the University of North Carolina, Bill Belichick was officially named a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2026 on Wednesday.
Belichick is the coach nominee for this year’s class, advancing from the nine Semifinalists in the category. The eight others were Tom Coughlin, Mike Holmgren, Chuck Knox, Buddy Parker, Dan Reeves, Marty Schottenheimer, George Seifert, and Mike Shanahan.
“To be in this position is extremely humbling,” Belichick said in a statement released to social media on Wednesday. “I am honored to be named the coaching finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2026. Thank you to the selection committee and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I am thankful for the organizations and thousands of players and coaches that I worked with for my 49 years in the NFL. This is a cherish able reflection of all my teammates throughout my NFL career.
“Congratulations to the other finalists Roger Craig, Kenny Anderson, L.C. Greenwood, and of course, Robert Kraft.
“I hope to see all of the deserving Patriots selected this year.”
Belichick has an overall record of 333-178 in the NFL — second only to Hall of Famer Don Shula’s 347 career NFL victories — and won 31 of 44 games (.705) in the playoffs as head coach of the Browns (1991-1995) and Patriots (2000-2023). Among his numerous accolades, Belichick is a member of the NFL 100 All-Time Team.
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye continued making his MVP case against the Giants on Monday night.
Maye was 24-of-31 for 282 yards and two touchdowns to help the Patriots to a 33-15 win. It was New England’s 10th straight win and it moved them to 11-2 ahead of their Week 14 bye.
It remains to be seen if Maye will wind up being voted the league’s MVP at the end of the year, but he was named the AFC’s offensive player of the week for his work against the Giants.
It is the first time that Maye has received that award and his play to this point in the season suggests there will be plenty of other prizes coming his way sooner or later.
Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft are finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2026.
The Hall announced Wednesday that Kraft is the contributor nominee and Belichick the coach nominee in the next class of inductees. Ken Anderson, Roger Craig and L.C. Greenwood are the seniors finalists.
The remaining bar to clear: Approval from at least 80 percent of the members of the full selection committee at their annual meeting next year in advance of the class unveiling during Super Bowl LX week in San Francisco.
For the second year, the finalists from these categories within the selection process are competing directly against each other under bylaws the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Board of Directors approved in 2024. The revision to the process helps ensure the exclusivity of inclusion in the game’s most elite fraternity.
Each member of the selection committee votes for only three of these five finalists. With the bylaws revision, a maximum of three of this year’s Finalists can be elected. If none of the five individuals receives 80 percent approval, then the individual who receives the most support would be elected to the Class of 2026.
Kraft, the owner and CEO of the Patriots since 1994, has seen his team win six Super Bowls and play in four others. All with Belichick as his head coach.
Kraft has also served on 17 owners committees, including the broadcast/media committee since 1997, which he has chaired for the past 18 years.
The other eight semifinalists in the contributor category this year were K.S. “Bud” Adams, Roone Arledge, Ralph Hay, Frank Bucko” Kilroy, Art Rooney Jr., Clark Shaughnessy, Seymour Siwoff and Buddy Young.
Belichick, the current coach at the University of North Carolina, has an overall record of 333-178 in the NFL — second only to Hall of Famer Don Shula’s 347 career NFL victories — and won 31 of 44 games (.705) in the playoffs. Among his numerous accolades, Belichick is a member of the NFL 100 All-Time Team.
The eight other Semifinalists in the Coach category this year were Tom Coughlin, Mike Holmgren, Chuck Knox, Buddy Parker, Dan Reeves, Marty Schottenheimer, George Seifert and Mike Shanahan.
Anderson played his entire career for the Bengals, 192 games overall through the 1986 season. He finished his career with four Pro Bowl nods, a league MVP award for the 1981 season and 32,838 passing yards with 197 passing touchdowns.
Craig won three Super Bowls with the 49ers, where he spent eight seasons before a year with the Raiders and two with the Vikings. For his career, he totaled 13,100 yards from scrimmage and scored 73 touchdowns. He was named the league’s offensive player of the year in 1988, when he also finished third in MVP voting.
Greenwood, a member of the famous “Steel Curtain” defensive units in the 1970s, played his entire 170-game career over 13 seasons with the Steelers. An undrafted free agent out of Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Greenwood won four Super Bowl rings, was named a first-team All-Pro defensive end twice and was selected to play in six Pro Bowls.
Also advancing to the semifinalist stage in the Seniors category were Henry Ellard, Joe Jacoby, Eddie Meador, Stanley Morgan, Steve Tasker and Otis Taylor.
Players in the seniors category last could have appeared in a professional game in the 2000 season.
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel says he loved the hit linebacker Christian Elliss put on Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart on Monday night. And Vrabel knows what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Vrabel said on WEEI that he also tells Patriots quarterback Drake Maye that quarterbacks are fair game when they’re running along the sideline if they don’t get out of bounds. Elliss drilled Dart while he was still inbounds, and it was the kind of good, clean legal hit that Vrabel knows his own quarterback will take if he doesn’t protect himself by stepping out of bounds.
“We show that to Drake and our defenders are being coached the same way,” Vrabel said. “When I say [to Maye], ‘We better not get cute over there by the sideline because this is legal,’ I turn around and tell the defense, ‘If this is happening, we need to try to knock the shit out of him as legally as possible.’”
The Patriots’ defense hit Dart hard multiple times, and Vrabel loved to see that.
“I thought it was good. I thought it was excellent,” Vrabel said. “If you’re in bounds and you’re not sliding . . . If there’s a football player running down the sideline we’re gonna have to hit him.”
