Within about 24 hours of each other, both the Hall of Fame and the Pro Bowl jumped the shark and lost any last shreds of respect they had from the public, the players, the media, and the coaches. On Tuesday, news leaked via ESPN’s Adam Schefter that Bill Belichick, by far the most successful coach in football history, is not getting inducted this year.
His resume doesn’t even need to be mentioned. His credentials are obvious to anyone who has followed the NFL for longer than a day. He’s Bill Belichick. But for whatever reason, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, on his first year of eligibility, snubbed him.
So the next time you’re having an argument with somebody about Matthew Stafford’s “obvious” induction into the Hall of Fame one day because he’s a Super Bowl winner and he might also add an MVP to his resume in the coming weeks, just remember that…BILL BELICHICK IS NOT A FIRST BALLOT HALL OF FAMER.
Stafford could get snubbed for literally any reason. If Belichick had to wait for the Hall of Fame, every single person involved with the sport is subject to the same level of fickleness and stupidity.
Set aside your biases against Belichick. Forget blaming it on “cheating” scandals that never once resulted in serious punishment by the NFL during his career. (He won three Super Bowls after both of his major cheating scandals.)
He’s Bill Belichick. Enough said.
Belichick not being a first ballot Hall of Famer makes Torry Holt’s annual sub look like a “who left the toilet seat up?” scandal at home.
And Torry Holt deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
The timing of the breaking news is interesting because it almost completely covered up the fact that the NFL made Shedeur Sanders a Pro Bowl quarterback on Monday. Arguably the worst PLAYER in the NFL this season, the least valuable quarterback in the league, Sanders is getting a Pro Bowl nod. There have been many bad Pro Bowl players in the past — Tyler Huntley is “a Pro Bowl quarterback” — and the Pro Bowl has had way less respect from people than the Hall of Fame.
But Sanders was objectively terrible and far worse than rookie classmate Cam Ward, a legitimately underrated signal caller who is more deserving to be the face of tomorrow’s NFL, and now the league is handing him a spot at the Pro Bowl.
Yes, we all know what you’re about to say…“The Pro Bowl is a joke and it doesn’t matter!”
Great, we all get it. That’s not an original thought.
Let’s talk to the quarterbacks who were not picked instead of Sanders, the ones who would have earned bonuses and made more money for their efforts and been able to build a small check mark on a now-made-worthless “hall of fame resume” because the NFL is trying to drive up ratings for a game that nobody wants to watch.
Should we care that much that Shedeur Sanders is a Pro Bowl professional football player who has yet to prove he is capable of even playing professional football? Not necessarily.
That doesn’t mean we can’t call it out. For players like Matthew Stafford, who had 1 Pro Bowl nod in his first 13 years in the league, it starts to round into shape why award-based resumes are just as worthless as the ballot you send into the NFL for Pro Bowl votes. Or the paper that Hall of Famers used to snub the greatest coach in NFL history.
You think Sean McVay is an easy choice to make the Hall of Fame because voters “like him” and they don’t like Belichick?
That’s only true today. It’s no guarantee that it’s how voters will feel tomorrow. Belichick was once a three-time Super Bowl head coach + two-time Super Bowl defensive coordinator without a serious off-field blemish on his record.
Now that over 20% of the voters decided that they didn’t “like” Belichick enough to vote him in, whether that’s because of scandals or his post-career dating stories, many fans and media members are wondering if they should ever pay attention to who gets into the Hall of Fame again.
“Snubbed Bill Belichick and awarded Shedeur Sanders.” How’s that for a resume?
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