Pro Football Hall Of Fame Voter Explains Why He Didn’t Choose Bill Belichick

It’s been two days since Bill Belichick failed to earn first-ballot enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Everyone from Patrick Mahomes to LeBron James to Donald Trump and Tom Brady have chimed in on the stunning news.

One of the voters who chose not to pick Belichick as a first-ballot candidate is Kansas City Star columnist Vahe Gregorian.

The longtime sports journalist explained his decision on Wednesday night.

“I can’t and won’t try to speak for others, and it’s a condition of being a voter to not divulge the deliberations,” Gregorian wrote. “But the so-called ‘cheating stuff’ is not at all the only possible explanation.”

He went on to detail why past New England Patriots controversies during the Belichick era like “Deflategate” and “Spygate” didn’t impact his choice.

For what it’s worth, Gregorian also didn’t vote for longtime Patriots owner Robert Kraft on the first ballot.

“Because it certainly didn’t influence my vote. In fact, I didn’t vote against Belichick or Kraft. I voted for the three senior candidates: Ken Anderson, Roger Craig and L.C. Greenwood,” he said. “All three have been long deserving of induction in the Hall. All three have been, well, snubbed for decades. … As it came time to cast the vote, I found myself thinking not just of them but of the experiences of recent senior semifinalists and finalists who didn’t make it.”

Gregorian, thus far, is the only voter to admit that they didn’t vote for Belichick, though he added that the coach’s enshrinement is “inevitable soon … as he should be.”

“At the risk of contradicting my own vote, really, he shouldn’t even have to wait. I understand why people are offended that he isn’t going in the first moment he can,” he wrote. “In the end, though, I felt more compelled by what I perceive to be last chances and looming lost causes within the system as we have it — a system I hope the Hall will see fit to change now.”