Tom Rock: How does Bill Belichick not get elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot?

At a time when football coaches are making a series of surprising moves — from John Harbaugh coming to the Giants to Paul Longo landing with Shoreham-Wading River High School and just about everywhere in between — the most expected relocation in this cycle has become the most shocking for not occurring.

Bill Belichick is not on to Canton.

At least that was the report from ESPN on Tuesday that cited sources indicating some voters did not elect him into this year’s Pro Football Hall of Fame class as a punishment for his run-ins with rules that included Spygate and Deflategate. Too many gates to get through, apparently.

There may be just a dozen or so people in the country who would not vote for Belichick to be enshrined as a first-ballot member of the Hall. Just his luck that they all seem to be on the selection committee that gets to actually choose who gets it. If it’s true — and again, it’s just one report saying so and parts of it have already been publicly denied by some of the actors involved — it’s a disgrace to the process and means that for at least the next 12 months the mythological home of the sport will be incomplete.

Belichick won six Super Bowls as a head coach, plus another two as a defensive coordinator for the Giants. He was a three-time NFL Coach of the Year. He holds or is tied for the record for most Super Bowl appearances as a head coach (9), most playoff wins as a head coach (31), most playoff appearances as a head coach (19), and most divisional championships as a head coach (17). His 302 regular-season wins are the third most in NFL history behind Hall of Famers Don Shula and George Halas. If you combine regular and postseason he has 333 victories, second only to Shula's 347.

So how did he not get in?

The Hall reconfigured its process for getting coaches into the building last year when it created a separate lane for them, other contributors and older veteran players that was intended to streamline their entrance and not have them competing against players. That was what led to Bill Parcells not being a first-ballot Hall of Famer when he made his journey to Canton that took two years of eligibility. So Belichick was one of five finalists in that lane this year along with Robert Kraft, Roger Craig, Kenny Anderson and L.C. Greenwood. But only up to three of them can make it and they have to get at least 40 of the 50 available votes (most of them held by writers and others who have covered the sport). Those voters, however, can only vote for three of the finalists. That means if you say yes to three, you are saying no to two.

Perhaps there are some voters who held grudges against Belichick. Perhaps there were some who assumed he would coast in so they didn’t want to waste their vote for him. There may have even been some who are uncomfortable with the other new rules that allow coaches to be considered after just one year away from the game; are we 100% sure Belichick won’t jump from the University of North Carolina back into the NFL at some point?

However it happened, there were enough no votes that Belichick apparently got snubbed.

He’s not the only one, though. Belichick will get in — likely next year — and take his place among the greats. In his denial this year, there are peripheral costs to others.

Tom Coughlin’s candidacy, certainly up to Hall of Fame standards but understandably behind Belichick’s even in spite of those two February days when he got the better of him, is now on hold for longer. There was hope among Coughlin’s supporters that he would be next in line once Belichick got in. Now he may have to wait much longer.

And what of Tom Brady? If Belichick is being punished for his transgressions, will the greatest quarterback of all time suffer the same retribution when he is up for consideration in 2028?

The Hall of Fame selection process has undergone several iterations in recent years, clearly none of them perfect, but the changes that haven’t taken place are the addition of more voters and further transparency into their votes. Perhaps that will now become the last part of Belichick’s legacy if his absence from this year’s class leads to an overhaul of the system.

Belichick has deep ties to the New York market, some good and others not so much. He found his greatest success as a coordinator with the Giants, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi as the organization's best lieutenants. But he also brought embarrassment and a lawsuit that is heading to the Supreme Court upon the franchise for meddling in their hiring of Brian Daboll four years ago; he mistakenly sent texts to the “wrong Brian” in talking up Brian Flores’ hopes for the job which led Flores to sue for what he called “sham” interviews by the team.

As for the Jets, well, there is certainly more animosity than good times. From his abrupt decision to resign as their head coach in 2000 at his introductory news conference to the torture he brought upon them for a quarter-century with the Patriots. It was against the Jets that his videotaping of sideline signals — Spygate — first became a national story.

Those transgressions should keep him out of either of the Rings of Honor that go around MetLife Stadium. But the Hall of Fame? No, he belongs in there no matter what he did here.

If some believe that Belichick should not go into the Hall of Fame because of the dishonor he brought on the sport, this smirch to the Hall itself may be even worse.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.