The Pro Football Hall of Fame will consider changes to the voting panel and process for selecting Hall of Famers after a year in which Bill Belichick’s omission from the 2026 class sparked outrage.
Hall of Fame president Jim Porter said in an interview after the five-player class was announced Thursday night that several possible changes could be made, adding that the changes were not specific to Belichick’s alleged disdain.
But Porter seemed less willing to change a recent rule change that grouped coaches and contributors with old-time players who played a role in Belichick’s missed tackles despite winning a record six Super Bowls as a head coach. new England Patriots.
Porter said Hall plans to return to in-person voting and discussions for the 50-member committee after moving to a virtual meeting room following the COVID-19 pandemic. He also said the vote would likely be held closer to the NFL Honors — the annual spectacle the Thursday before the Super Bowl — to reduce the possibility of a leak. He said Hall will consider releasing vote totals and individual ballots in the future but will not do so for this year’s class.
Porter said the Hall would also consider replacing voters who may have violated the rules either by publicly discussing candidates in off-record debates or by not voting for the “most qualified” candidates in each category.
“I’m not here to tell them who is the most qualified,” Porter said. “If the Hall were to tell who was the most qualified, we wouldn’t need to vote for them. We understand that. We just want to follow the rules.”
voter Vahe Gregorian of the Kansas City Star Wrote a column explaining his reasoning for selecting senior players Ken Anderson, Roger Craig, and LC Greenwood over Belichick, even though he believed Belichick should not have waited to join.
Gregorian wrote, “In the end, however, I feel more compelled by what I consider to be last chances and by the lost causes emerging within the system – a system that I hope Hall will now see fit to change.”
But Porter spoke about choosing senior players over coaches because players could not be guaranteed another chance as finalists were not allowed.
“It’s not an option,” Porter said. “You must choose the fittest. These are the instructions that were read four times.”
Some voters have expressed disappointment over rule changes made last year that placed players who have been retired for at least 25 years in the senior category, along with coaches and contributors. The new rules have made it harder for anyone to reach the 80% threshold.
In this year’s voting, Belichick and Patriots owner Robert Kraft were grouped with the three senior players. Instead of voting up or down on each candidate, voters chose three of the five, with the leading vote getter and anyone else above 80% being admitted into the Hall. Craig was the only one of the five to be inducted this year after Sterling Sharpe was left alone last year, with coach Mike Holmgren not getting enough support.
This is the third consecutive year that no coach received the honor, leading some – including voters – to call for the coaches and contributors to be separated from the veterans.
Porter didn’t seem inclined to change that process, saying that for more than 50 years, coaches and contributors had been grouped with players before a change about 10 years ago.
“The question is, what changed?” Porter asked. “What was it that the selectors could do for the last 50 years but are no longer able to do. They could have found the right person that didn’t require a category. I don’t know. We’ll find out. We’ll talk to a lot of people. … But there’s a responsibility there. The responsibility is to pick the most deserving. They got to where that number was. So, my question is, is everybody picking the most deserving?”
This was the second consecutive year that less than five modern era candidates got admission following the rule change. Instead of an up or down vote on five players, seven entered the final stage, with voters allowed to choose five. The top three and anyone above 80% gets into the hall.
Last year only three players reached that limit. This year, there were four: Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Luke Kuechly and Adam Vinatieri. Willie Anderson, Terrell Suggs and Marshall Yanda missed out and will automatically be in the final 15 next year.
After at least seven people have been inducted for 12 consecutive years, only four and five people have been inducted in the last two years.
“The numbers have gotten really high,” Porter said.
Porter said he hoped shortening the time between the vote and the announcement – it was more than three weeks this year – would reduce leaks, but he still wanted enough time to deliver the news in person to the new class for the tradition of Hall of Famers, known as “The Knock”.
He is open to overall change but does not see the need for drastic changes in the process.
“We will make some changes and look into it,” he said. “We’re going to do what’s best for the Hall of Fame. My job is to protect the integrity of the Hall, to protect the integrity of the process.”
