Pro Football HOF To Consider Voting Panel, Process Changes After Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft Snubs

Bill Belichick is not headed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on his first shot despite winning eight total Super Bowls as an NFL coach, and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who shared six of those Super Bowls with Belichick when he was the Pats' head coach, isn't going to Canton yet either.

On Thursday, Pro Football Hall of Fame president Jim Porter spoke with the Associated Press in the aftermath of the snubs, with the Belichick one receiving tremendous outcry and even making mainstream news away from the sports world.

In essence, Porter stressed that Hall of Fame voters are asked to pick the "most deserving" candidates for consideration.

"I'm not here to tell them who the most deserving is," Porter said. "If the Hall was to tell who the most deserving is, we wouldn't need them to vote. We understand that. We just want the rules followed."

In fact, Porter said the Hall might look to replace voters who did not follow Hall rules to pick the "most deserving" candidates.

Per the AP: "Porter said the Hall will also look at replacing any voters who might have violated the rules either by publicly discussing the off-record debate about the candidates or by not voting for the 'most deserving' candidates in each category."

Porter said instructions on voting "were read four times."

The Hall of Fame process came under fire this year when Belichick didn't get in.

In essence, players who retired 25-plus years ago, coaches and contributors (non-players or coaches) are lumped into one category. Committees can put up three senior players, one coach and one contributor for election for a total of five. From there, a max of three total from that group can be voted into the Hall, and each candidate needs at least 80 percent of the vote from the 50 voters to get in.

The only person to get into the Hall from that process this year was former San Francisco 49ers running back Roger Craig.

Porter did talk more about the process and stressed that voters are asked to pick the "most deserving" candidates.

"The question is, what changed?" Porter asked. "What was it that the selectors could do that for the 50-some years but now can't. They could get the right person in that didn't require a category. I don't know. We'll find it 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 down to where that number was. So my question is, is everybody picking the most deserving."

"We'll do some tweaks and we'll take a look," he added. "We're going to do what's best for the Hall of Fame. My job is to protect the integrity of the Hall, protect the integrity of the process."

We'll see if anything changes down the road, but the educated guess is that Belichick should get in next year. In the interim, this year's class consists of Craig, quarterback Drew Brees, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, linebacker Luke Kuechly and kicker Adam Vinatieri.