First came the shocking report that Bill Belichick didn’t make the cut for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
That report included sources telling ESPN that Bill Polian — a Hall of Fame voter and former rival of Belichick’s — led a campaign among voters that Belichick should have to “wait a year” for his Hall call, citing the New England Patriots’ Spygate and Deflategate scandals as justification.
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Then, as fury swelled, came the denial. In the hours after the news broke Tuesday, Polian “categorically” denied the report’s portrayal of his stance and insisted that he voted for Belichick. Here’s what he told Sports Illustrated’s Matt Verderame:
“That’s totally and categorically untrue,” Polian told Verderame of the ESPN report. “I voted for him.”
Then, a few hours later, came the backtrack.
Bill Polian changes his story
ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr., who broke the initial news with his colleague Seth Wickersham, spoke with Polian in the aftermath of their story. It turns out that Polian’s not so sure whether or not he actually voted for Belichick. Though he can say with certainty that he did vote for Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
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And he acknowledged the existence of a campaign to make Belichick wait. But it wasn’t his idea.
Here’s that breakdown in Van Natta’s and Wickersham’s words:
In an interview with ESPN on Tuesday night, Polian denied telling fellow voters that Belichick should serve a one-year penance for Spygate. But he said he heard his fellow voters “float that idea” but he insisted he didn’t agree or disagree with the proposal.
Polian said he voted for Kraft and even spoke up on his behalf during the deliberations, saying Kraft had no knowledge of the Spygate scheme. Polian added that he could not remember with 100% certainty if he voted for Belichick, saying he was 95% sure he voted for the coach and a player, “most likely” L.C. Greenwood.
OK then.
Bill Polian isn’t certain whether or not he voted for Bill Belichick for the Hall of Fame.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Did he or didn’t he?
Polian’s back-and-forth adds more fuel to a fire that’s been raging in NFL circles and on social media since the story of Belichick’s snub broke. People want to know who among Hall of Fame voters denied Belichick his first-ballot induction. And they want to know now.
Those answers aren’t readily available. But Polian put himself at the center of the storm as former players, fans and even Hall of Fame voters expressed dismay at Belichick not getting in despite contributing to eight Super Bowl-winning teams, six of them as the head coach of the Patriots.
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Polian is one of 50 voters on this year’s Hall of Fame voting panel. Election to the Hall of Fame requires 40 of those 50 voters to cast a yes ballot, meaning that at least 11 voters voted against Belichick’s enshrinement.
Is Polian among those no votes? Apparently, even he doesn’t know.
Bill Polian’s long history with Belichick’s Patriots
What is known about Polian is that he spent 12 seasons as the general manager and president of the Indianapolis Colts from 1998-2009. That spanned almost the entirety of the Peyton Manning era that produced repeated deep playoff runs and a Super Bowl championship after the 2006 season.
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The Colts’ chief rivals during that span were Belichick’s Patriots. And the Patriots got the best of them. While the Colts won one Super Bowl during Polian’s tenure, the Patriots won three. The teams played repeated high-stakes games in the regular season and playoffs in what’s widely considered one of the great rivalries in NFL history.
Polian pushed rule change after high-stakes loss to Patriots
One of those games was the 2003 AFC championship, in which the Patriots beat the Colts 24-14 en route to their second of three Super Bowl championships in four years. Manning thew four interceptions that day. And the Colts believed that officials allowed the Patriots to get away with repeated instances of contact and defensive holding.
Per an NBC report from 2005, Polian “clearly was seething after the game.” And as a member of the NFL’s competition committee, he helped push through changes that directed game officials to more closely enforce rules barring certain types of defensive contact with receivers more than 5 yards downfield.
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This became known in New England as the “Ty Law rule,” named after the famously physical and aggressive Patriots cornerback who intercepted Manning three times in that 2003 AFC championship. And it’s credited with dramatically changing how NFL officials call physical play in the secondary.
Per NBC, officials made 191 defensive illegal-contact in the 2004 regular season compared to 79 in the 2003 season prior to the Colts-Patriots championship game.
What about Spygate, Deflategate?
This was all before the Spygate and Deflategate scandals that were referenced in Tuesday’s ESPN report.
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Spygate took place during Polian’s tenure in 2007. It didn’t directly involve the Colts. Deflategate, meanwhile, came after Polian’s final 2009 season running the Colts’ front office. But it revolved around New England’s 45-7 win over the Colts in the 2014 AFC championship game in which the Patriots were found to have illegally used under-inflated balls, allegedly to their advantage.
And it sounds from ESPN’s report that Polian remains bitter about both.
Does any of this confirm that Polian pushed the agenda to make Belichick wait or is one of the 11-plus voters who didn’t vote for him? No.
But Polian isn’t doing himself any favors with his explanations.
