Tom Brady Had Blunt Four-Word Response to Bill Belichick’s Hall of Fame Snub

Tom Brady weighed in on seeing his former Patriots coach Bill Belichick get snubbed by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. | Winslow Townson-Imagn Images

Like everyone else in the sports world, Tom Brady was also stunned when he heard news that Bill Belichick wasn’t elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on his first ballot.

Belichick, a six-time Super Bowl champion, was among five candidates up for induction during his first year of eligibility and needed 40 votes from a 50-person panel to get into Canton. Somehow, some way, Belichick fell short, and a lot of people are understandably outraged and confounded by the result.

That includes fellow Patriots legend Tom Brady, who reportedly sent a passionate message to the Hall of Fame selection committee endorsing Belichick for the great honor.

When Belichick ended up getting passed over on the ballot, Brady was just as baffled as the rest of the NFL community.

“I don’t understand it,” Brady said, on a radio appearance with Seattle Sports’ Mike Salk on Wednesday. “I mean I was with him every day, if he’s not a first ballot Hall of Famer, there’s really no coach that should ever be a first ballot Hall of Famer. Which is completely ridiculous, because people deserve it.”

Here’s Tom Brady to @TheMikeSalk on Bill Belichick’s HOF snub. pic.twitter.com/YdbjdiYBa1

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) January 28, 2026

“There’s no coach I’d rather play for,” Brady continued. “If I’m picking one coach to go out there to win a Super Bowl, give me one season, I’m taking Bill Belichick. So that’s enough said. Outside of that, when it comes down to votes and popularity and all that, welcome to the world of voting. You may as well go try out for the Oscars and get a big panel to tell you if you’re good or not. It’s the way it works, unfortunately. He’s going to get into the Hall of Fame, in the end I’m not worried about that. A lot of times in life, for all of us, things don’t happen exactly how you want them or on your timeline, but we’ll all be there to celebrate him when it does happen. He’s going to have a huge turnout from so many players, coaches that appreciated everything that he did, and the commitment that he made to winning, and the impact that he made on all of our lives.”

Brady himself will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2028, though based on what happened with Belichick, he’s apparently not a shoo-in, either.

Belichick was the only coach in this year’s Hall of Fame candidate pool, which included New England owner Robert Kraft, Bengals quarterback Ken Anderson, Steelers defensive end L.C. Greenwood and 49ers fullback Roger Craig. The full Hall of Fame class is set to be unveiled on Feb. 5 at the NFL Honors show, at which point it will be revealed who got in over the ex-Patriots coach. Per the Hall of Fame voting system rules, at least one of the five candidates must be elected, but no more than three can get in.

For some extra context, Belichick isn’t the only distinguished NFL coach to be snubbed from the Hall of Fame on his first ballot: he joins Vince Lombardi (1971), Bill Walsh (1993) and Jimmy Johnson (2020), among others, who had to wait for their gold jacket, too.

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