The Pro Football Hall of Fame, an otherwise respected institution, has recently seen its credibility take a hit. When Bill Belichick was snubbed of a first-ballot induction into the Hall of Fame, chaos followed, and theories flew. Terrell Owens voiced his troubles back in the day, while Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady showed support for the greatest coach of all time. And now, it is Jason Kelce who is defending the 73-year-old.

“If you are doing signals out in the open so that the other team can see them, and you do it enough and repeatedly that they can then steal it from you. That’s your fault,” Jason Kelce said on the 94 WIP podcast. “If you are doing signals so bad that the other team can steal them, that’s your fault.”

The other people on the podcast immediately pointed out that Belichick did far more than that, noting that he was filming his opponents’ practices. In response, Kelce said he’d heard stories of other coaches using similar tactics.

“I have heard multiple stories of coaches going into other teams’ hotel rooms to get game plans,” Kelce said.

The infamous Spygate incident occurred on September 9, 2007, when a video assistant for New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was caught videotaping the hand signals of the Jets’ defensive coaches at Giants Stadium. Once this was discovered, NFL security was alerted by then–Jets head coach Eric Mangini, who had previously served as the Patriots’ defensive coordinator. The act was a clear violation of NFL rules.

Football coaches often use hand signals to direct players on which defensive schemes to run. While filming signals isn’t prohibited under NFL guidelines, the Patriots did so from an unauthorized location.

“Never in a million years did I expect it (Spygate) to play out like this,” Eric Mangini said in a 2012 interview. “This is one of those situations where I didn’t want them to do the things they were doing.”

As a consequence of the Spygate incident, Belichick was fined half a million dollars, while the Patriots were penalized a quarter million. In addition, they lost their first-round draft pick in 2008. The tapes at the center of the investigation were immediately destroyed by the league and never thoroughly examined. This then fueled years of debate about what they actually contained.

However, Belichick accepted responsibility for the violation, saying he had misinterpreted the league’s rules regarding in-game video usage. The NFL rejected that explanation and stressed that teams had been warned about the policy.

This incident tarnished Belichick’s image, at least for a while. It gave the perception that the Patriots’ historic 16-0 regular season was driven by cheating and sneaky tactics, not exceptional coaching. It also put the Patriots’ dynasty, led by Belichick, under the microscope.

Now, tie all of this to the six-time Super Bowl champion’s omission from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, and it’s no wonder the noise that followed.

Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski react to Belichick’s HOF snub

Spending 24 seasons with the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick made the franchise one of the most successful teams in NFL history. After all, he guided the Patriots to 11 consecutive divisional titles. Despite putting up those impressive numbers, he was still snubbed from the Hall of Fame.

Belichick required at least 40 votes for eligibility in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this season. In the 50-person committee, he failed to secure the minimum 80% mark, which resulted in his disqualification.

And if the reports are to be believed, it was Belichick’s old rival, Bill Polian, who was campaigning against Belichick during the voting process. His supposed argument was that Belichick should do a year of “penance” for the old Spygate scandal. While the 83-year-old denies doing this, he also couldn’t remember explicitly whether he had voted for Belichick or not.

On the other hand, Tom Brady found it difficult to believe that his former coach was excluded from the HOF honor this year and addressed the controversy on the Brock and Salk Show.

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“I don’t understand it,” the former Patriots quarterback said. “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.”

Much like Brady, his former Patriots teammate Rob Gronkowski, who also played under Belichick, weighed in on the controversy.

“It’s very asinine that he was not a first-ballot Hall of Fame,” said the former tight end. “It’s just absolutely absurd.”

Regardless of the snub and controversy, Belichick’s legacy remains unquestionable, and he could very well become a Hall of Famer next year.