What should it take to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame? One would think 8 Super Bowl wins and being the second-winningest head coach should get you in there, right? In this season’s Hall of Fame class, Bill Belichick was snubbed, and the decision put the HOF in murky waters. Deion Sanders lambasted the decision and suggested a prominent change. All of it has now led to HOF president Jim Porter announcing new plans.

Porter has now announced that “several possible tweaks” can be made to the selection rules now. However, he specified that those changes aren’t just specific to Belichick’s HOF snub. According to reports, the Hall now plans to return to in-person voting after it moved to a virtual setup during COVID-19. But this is just one possible adjustment.

Porter is also proposing to conduct the voting closer to the Super Bowl and would consider releasing vote totals and individual ballots in the future. Not just that, the Hall is also considering taking a look at “replacing voters who might have violated the rules” by revealing their votes in public or by abstaining from voting. Lastly, Porter has pushed the voters to also vote for “the most deserving” candidates.

“You have to pick the most deserving. Those are the instructions that were read four times,” Porter said. “There’s a responsibility there. The responsibility is to pick the most deserving. They got down to where that number was. So, my question is, is everybody picking the most deserving?”

This year, four players were inducted into the hall (and one senior), but the inclusions didn’t have any coach, just like the previous year. Although Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Luke Kuechly, Adam Vinatieri, and Roger Craig deserved the induction, the inclusion of Bill Belichick had to be a no-brainer for the voters. But the 50-person selection committee comprising media reps covering NFL teams made “emotional decisions” instead of picking the best candidate.

“I felt duty-bound to vote for the richly deserving seniors, who most likely won’t ever have a hearing again as more senior candidates enter the pool and fresh cases get made for others,” Columnist Vahe Gregorian, a voter for the Hall, said. “Belichick is inevitable soon … as he should be.”

Deion Sanders, however, is in fierce opposition to writers and media members voting for the Hall of Fame.

In a February 7 viral interview with ESPN2’s Kevin Clark, Deion Sanders called writers voting for players akin to the “Grinch who steals Christmas presents” voting in a “beauty pageant.” When Kevin Clark interjected and said that writers do a good job following the league, Sanders’ response was a blunt “no.”

“No, they don’t,” Coach Prime said about the writers. “We are applauding them for something, clapping for somebody that shouldn’t be clapped for it. We can’t do that. No, they’re not. They are messing it up consistently,” Deion Sanders added.

The solution, according to Coach Prime, is to make voting exclusive for previously inducted Hall of Famers. Can that solution work in the current voting setup? It will be more complex than one can envision.

Should the Pro Football Hall of Fame get rid of its complex voting process?

Currently, players are eligible for a HoF selection after being retired for five consecutive seasons. Whereas coaches are eligible for selection in just one year. Thereafter, the names are divided into four categories: coaches, contributors who made outstanding contributions to pro football, modern-era players, and seniors. The voting itself thereon is a cumbersome endeavor.

7 eligible candidates are narrowed down from players, 3 from seniors, 1 from coaches, and 1 from contributors. Thereafter, coaches, seniors, and contributors are grouped, and 7 players are grouped separately. Now, each voter casts 5 votes among 7 players, and 3 votes are cast for the other group. The candidates who get 80% approval get in automatically. However, some other names also make the list.

If fewer than 3 players reach 80% approval, the top 3 players are inducted, and 1 is inducted amongst the other category comprising coaches, contributors, and seniors. The voting is more complex than ever, and no matter what happens, it remains so. Earlier, before the Hall changed its rules, it had four classes of eight, eight, nine, and seven members each. Something Deion Sanders also didn’t like.

“I’m not mad at anyone. The guys that got in,” Deion Sanders said. “My head doesn’t belong with some of these other heads that are in the Hall of Fame. … This thing is becoming a free-for-all now, man. … If you play well—no. No. It ain’t good. It’s people who change the game. That’s what the Hall of Fame is.”

Now, after the voting rules change, the induction is more driven by emotion than credentials. Kurt Warner came out hard on Belichick’s exclusion, and so did Tom Brady and other prominent NFL names. Letting HoFers like Deion Sanders himself vote can be a welcome change, and it would also help if the HoF did away with its complex process and adopted simple voting. That way, many deserving candidates can get in, and the classes would be fairly controversy-free.