The Pro Football Hall of Fame on Friday announced major changes to its selection process, as was expected following the shocking and embarrassing snub of Bill Belichick in his first year of eligibility.
The panel of selectors has been significantly reduced from 50 to 28 (with three members non-voting). Candidates will still be required to receive 80 percent of the vote to receive a gold jacket. The panel will also resume in-person meetings after six years of gathering virtually, a holdover from the pandemic era.
“The Hall of Fame’s selection process has always been guided by integrity, thoughtful deliberation and a commitment to honoring those most deserving of football’s highest individual honor,” Hall of Fame president and CEO Jim Porter said in a statement. “We believe these changes both augment what has worked well while addressing opportunities to further strengthen a tradition that means so much to the game and everyone who loves it.”
Additionally, the structure of the selection process allowed for "unintended biases," Porter said:
-- Previously, selectors were assigned to represent the candidates from a specific team. This is going away.
-- Players more than 25 years removed from their career were eligible under their own senior pool. Moving forward, all players will compete together for gold jackets.
-- A single person will make the case for all Hall of Fame candidates. Previously, a different person presented each candidate's career, leaving their Hall of Fame chances up to the presentation skills of who happened to represent them.
-- A Hall of Fame class can now be as big as seven members in a finalist class of 15 (13 players, one coach, one contributor), and as small as three.
Obviously, many of these changes have nothing to do with Belichick's snub, which served as the impetus to make much-needed changes after years of deliberation. Ultimately, no amount of safeguards can account for the lack of common sense in the room that somehow left an 8-time Super Bowl winner (six as head coach) as deemed unworthy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.