Patriots fans have been so busy reveling in the new Drake Maye-Mike Vrabel era, they’ve barely had time to come up for air over the past 10 weeks of the regular season. This week calls for some much-needed rest and reflection, with New England hitting its well-timed bye week perched atop the entire NFL with an 11-2 record.
This is actually a perfect week for reflection, after the Pro Football Hall announced Patriots owner Robert Kraft and former head coach Bill Belichick as individual finalists for potential induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the Class of 2026.
The 84-year-old Kraft, nominated as a contributor, waited 14 years to get through the Hall's contributor committee. Widely considered one of the most influential owners in NFL history, with one of the greatest dynasties in sports history under his watch, it’s a sad look for the league that it’s taken this long. But from Spygate, to Deflategate, to his Orchids of Asia massage parlor charges in 2019, Kraft's resume is far from spotless.
Belichick could be the big ticket Kraft's been waiting for, as according to ESPN, the Hall’s committee split the coaches and contributors into separate categories in 2024. That makes Belichick, assuming he doesn’t return to the NFL as a head coach during this next hiring cycle, a virtual lock to get inducted in his first year on the ballot, and Kraft figures to follow along on Belichick’s coattails. Tom Brady will join them both in Canton in 2028, which will be his first year of eligibility.
Even with how things ended with Belichick and Kraft in Foxboro, no logical Patriots fan would argue the pair’s validity as Hall of Famers. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is already in the Hall, for crying out loud, and Belichick’s resume goes beyond his nine Super Bowl appearances and six championships with the Patriots; as he not-so-subtly reminds those cruising the waters off of Nantucket, he has eight rings, including two as the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants.
Making Belichick, the coach and general manager who drafted and helped develop Tom Brady, wait for his call to the Hall of Fame is objectively absurd. But former player Ted Johnson has a unique perspective, and he certainly had a lot to say on the subject during a recent segment of WEEI Afternoons.
Ex-Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson is out on Bill Belichick being a first-ballot Hall of Famer
Johnson and Belichick go way back, and it’s certainly no longer peachy between the two.
In 2007, a New York Times article detailed Johnson’s mental health struggles, which he links back to Belichick subjecting him to hits in practice while he was recovering from a concussion. “There's something wrong with my brain,” he told the Times. “And I know when it started."
Belichick denied any knowledge of Johnson’s concussion-like symptoms at the time of the story, but let’s just say their relationship has been fractured ever since. Johnson’s 10-year career spanned three separate Patriots head coaches, from Bill Parcels — who drafted Johnson in the second round of the 1995 NFL Draft — to Pete Carroll, and finally to Belichick from 2000 to 2004, winning three Super Bowl titles during the start of the Brady era.
Johnson has been extremely critical of Belichick ever since, particularly for his involvement in Spygate and related cheating scandals, and he did not hold back this week on WEEI when discussing whether Belichick should be part of the upcoming 2026 class.
“I would say Belichick, by far, is the most responsible for the cheating scandals. I don’t remember Bill coming around to us saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to spy on this team. I just want you guys to know. Don’t say anything to anybody if they ask you, but we’re going to be doing some stuff behind the scenes that might get questioned later on. So, just make sure when they question your Super Bowls later, you just tell them that you had no knowledge of the cheating scandal.’ … And also, the cheating — they knew the rules. Belichick knew the rules and he still cheated anyway.
I don’t know if a coach has had more success than Bill when it comes to championships, but also more negative kind of stories that he’s brought upon himself. So to say that he deserves to go into the Hall of Fame, first-ballot? When you consider all of those scandals that he’s been a part of? I don’t agree with it.”
Johnson clarified that Belichick should eventually get in, just that he doesn’t deserve the credit of being a first-ballot choice. His take is obviously uniquely informed, but also extremely biased.
Similar to the ongoing Kraft situation, and even with Brady in a couple years if folks really want to go there, no resume is perfect. Mistakes were made. Lines were toed, maybe even crossed at times. But the reality is that punishments were levied by the NFL, added guardrails were put into place — and the Patriots only continued to ascend and win championships at a rate never before seen in league history.
Love him or hate him, Belichick is a clear-cut, first-ballot, slam-dunk Hall of Famer as the greatest coach the league has ever seen. He’s probably not a Hall of Fame person, to Johnson’s point, but to seriously argue against his candidacy for 2026 is way off base, and everybody knows it.