00:00But, boy, I'll tell you, when the story started leaking out from the reporters at ESPN and then you started doing your due diligence and you started finding out that Bill Belichick wasn't going to be a first ballot Hall of Famer.
00:12Adam Kaplan is here with us. And, Adam, what was your initial response when you heard that a guy with 334 victories and eight Super Bowls and Coach Tom Brady and Lawrence Taylor is not going to be a first ballot Hall of Famer?
00:26Yeah, Dan, good to see you. Yeah. So my first reaction was I'd love to talk to the people that didn't vote for him. I just I don't understand that.
00:34If I had a Hall of Fame vote, I vote other things, but I don't have a Hall of Fame vote. But if I did, I absolutely would have put him in the first ballot as the first ballot Hall of Famer.
00:42Whether it's the Flakegate or Spygate and Flakegate had nothing to do with Spygate. OK, that's a different story.
00:49But you have to make a decision about how you're evaluating this coach and also any player when you vote for the Hall of Fame about putting a player in early versus later.
01:01It's to me, it's absurd. I know I understand the Hall of Fame process for the for pro football is different than MLB.
01:07I totally get that. MLB is way more statistically based where the NFL is a little bit harder.
01:12It's a little bit more nebulous. But when you look at the situation with Belichick, give me a reason why you should be on the Hall of Fame.
01:20Again, are you strictly as a voter saying, hey, I can't get over what happened in Spygate.
01:25I can't get over that. OK, that's fine. But because we don't have a transparency with this situation,
01:31we're truly not going to know exactly why the guys who said, no, I'm not doing it this year, why they felt that way.
01:37How about this, though, Adam? OK, if you're going to use that metric, let's say they're using that metric that, you know,
01:44it's the Flategate and Spygate. Well, obviously, then that's going to affect their thought process on Brady being a slam dunk Hall of Famer, too,
01:51because let's not forget something about the Flategate. Bill wasn't really implicated in that.
01:57I know that was the trainer and that was Brady was actually suspended for games for that at the beginning of a season.
02:03So, I mean, if you're going to use that metric and go down that lane, Adam, I mean, that affects Brady, too, no?
02:10It should. It absolutely should. Because Belichick, as I said earlier here to start this, he had nothing to do with Belichick, nothing to do with Deflategate.
02:19I know people are I know talking to friends around the league and personnel.
02:24They're always going to wonder about Belichick because what happened with Spygate that bothered a lot of people.
02:28I lived that when I was at ESPN. I remember it was more Deflategate because I was actually there during Deflategate.
02:34But a lot of the Spygate stuff came up because they weren't sure then if Belichick was or wasn't involved.
02:39And we know for a fact he wasn't involved. But some conspiracy theorists who work for NFL teams will never get over Belichick and Spygate.
02:46They just won't ever forgive him. No matter what people tell you about,
02:50it's been going on in the league for years with other teams.
02:52That's not the way they see it because they always wondered, how could you win so many Super Bowls?
02:57And do it the way that they did it? Is it just Brady? Is it a coach?
03:04Dan, on your question, though, what do you want to give Belichick credit for?
03:07Is it just because he couldn't win a Super Bowl without Brady and then versus having him?
03:12Hey, by the way, Belichick made the call to draft Brady. Let's not forget about that.
03:16To move this along here, if I had a vote and if I was in the room, right, and let's say you and I were on the panel.
03:22Let's say I was presenting. I would say, guys, give me the reasons why you wouldn't want Bill as a first Ballot Hall of Famer.
03:29And I would challenge those guys. I would go up against it because I would have so much in scouting.
03:35There are so many great things you folks don't know about Belichick in terms of scouting, how he does it.
03:40He was the first one, because I know for friends who work for the Patriots, to talk about 11 personnel.
03:45And we're going to go more 11. That's three receivers, one back and one tight end, because that's the way I see it.
03:52This is the way the trend of the league. Now we're going to start doing this.
03:55And he was right. That's when he made the trade, which people thought was crazy with the Dolphins to get Wes Welker.
04:00Like that's like he was so innovative. He just just for the innovation, he should be in the Hall of Fame.
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