Tony Dungy looked like he wanted an escape from Alcatraz when Rodney Harrison brought up the snubbing of Bill Belichick from the Hall of Fame on NBC’s Super Bowl pregame show.
Harrison, who spent six of his 15 years in the NFL playing for the Patriots and won two Super Bowls while Belichick was head coach, slammed Pro Football Hall of Fame voters for not voting him as part of the class of 2026.
The topic came up when Jac Collinsworth asked Dungy if he voted for Belichick, which the former Colts head coach has refused to answer on several occasions.
While Dungy passed the blame onto the voting format, Harrison didn’t appear to be buying what his fellow NBC analyst was saying.
“What I would say, coach, is any list that doesn’t include Bill Belichick at the top is absolutely wrong,” Harrison said. “And a lot of those players that we mentioned, they’re great players. I played with Drew Brees. I played with Adam Vinatari. But there’s nobody more deserving to be in that Hall of Fame than Coach Belichick. I’ve seen his greatness. I’ve seen him design defenses to stop your offense. You just look at the players that he’s impacted.
“He’s been unbelievable. When I look throughout the Hall of Fame, and even a guy like Tom Brady, Tom Brady wouldn’t be Tom Brady without Bill Belichick. That’s the disappointing part of it, Coach, and you guys got it wrong.”
Dungy responded by saying that he understood Harrison’s “passion” and that the issue went beyond just Belichick.
He also said that he and his fellow voters had been vocal about the need for it to change.
While Dungy, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016, wouldn’t say how he voted, he did defend his fellow voters while throwing the Pro Football Hall of Fame under the bus.
“In this category, coaches, contributors, senior players; there are five finalists. You could vote. We voted as a team. Our group voted. Roger Craig got the most votes. I stand behind that as a teammate. That’s how we voted,” he said. “But here’s the problem. We voted for three people. There are two other slots available. Bill Belichick definitely deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Robert Kraft deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. L.C. Greenwood deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Ken Anderson deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. And we’ve got two slots. But because of a change that the Hall of Fame made two years ago, none of those guys got in. And it wasn’t because of us.
“People think that we voted against Bill Belichick. We did not. As a matter of fact, if the same exact vote had taken place, same totals two years ago, Bill Belichick would be in, so would another deserving Hall of Famer. And that’s why I’m upset.”
