Why Patriots SPYGATE CONTROVERSY cost Bill Belichick Hall of Fame | Colin Cowherd: THE HERD NFL

What this episode is about

The discussion centers around the impact of the Spygate controversy on Bill Belichick's Hall of Fame candidacy, with reports indicating that it played a significant role in his exclusion this year. The narrative highlights that while Belichick's coaching success is notable, recurring issues related to rule violations have led to a perceived stigma, ultimately affecting his recognition in the Hall of Fame despite his achievements.

Key takeaways

• Bill Belichick: Hall of Fame contender or Spygate's punching bag? Context matters more than ever.
• The outrage over Belichick's snub reveals fans can't handle the consequences of their own accusations.
• Cheating is universal, but it doesn't excuse illegal actions in sports; the NFL demands accountability.
• Tom Brady's underrated—can anyone else claim a winning record with Belichick's other quarterbacks? It's a tough sell.
• When your team loses draft picks for cheating, it’s not just a penalty; it's a public relations disaster.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Colin Cowherd (Host) · 17 min speaking
• Ian O'Connor (Guest) · 8 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Spygate, Bill Belichick, Ian O'Connor, NFL
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Ian Brady, Jimmy Johnson, Joe Gibbs
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Spygate, Ian O'Connor, The Athletic, Jimmy Johnson
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Aaron Rodgers, Eli Manning, Ian O'Connor, The Athletic
5. 20:00 – 25:00: Spygate, The Athletic, Robert Kraft, Deflategate

Notable quotes from "Why Patriots SPYGATE CONTROVERSY cost Bill Belichick Hall of Fame | Colin Cowherd: THE HERD NFL"

• Spygate. Some did bring up, according to the article, that he won 45% of his games without Brady and often was embarrassing, but it was overwhelmingly, according to multiple sources, Spygate.

  about Spygate · at 0:40

• First round pick or a third or your coach was fined a million dollars? Oh, the answer is never. The NFL doesn't do that and they don't like to do that to the reigning dynasty…

  about NFL · at 1:26

• It just unravels and the house comes down. And I think that speaks again, winning percentage with Brady. Brady without Bellichic won 65% of his games.

  about Ian Brady · at 7:46

• Dependable columnist in America, great reporter and a great writer. And a friend Ian O' Conor joining us now live, the article in the Athletic Today, very comprehensive, and it…

  about Ian O'Connor · at 10:22

• Nine AFC Championship games and won 12 divisions, division titles. so like I think Spygate should have been brought up in the discussion with the voting committee without…

  about Bill Belichick · at 11:33

• No. I think that's right. I'm not sure he's a first ballot guy either. And he was a 500 quarterback in the regular season. He only won postseason games in the two years he won…

  about Eli Manning · at 16:15

• Of Aaron Rogers. Fantastic read. So, and I want to you can take your time obviously on this is that I said I could see Mike McCarthy and Aaron saying, Let's just make it work.…

  about Aaron Rodgers · at 17:05

• The hallway sometimes and not even say hi to him. And at the end of the day, Craft deserves a lot of credit for keeping that group together for Brady and Bellichic. Obviously…

  about Robert Kraft · at 22:31

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Bill Belichick — Person · Primary referenced subject · 1 mention · first at 0:55
  Central figure in the Hall of Fame debate; discussed in relation to Spygate, coaching legacy, and record with/without Tom Brady.
• Ian O'Connor — Person · Main guest / referenced reporter · 3 mentions · first at 0:27
  Interview guest and author of the cited Athletic piece; provides sourcing and argumentation about Spygate and Hall of Fame voting dynamics.
• Ian Brady — Person · Key comparator / referenced superstar · 3 mentions · first at 5:39
  Used to contextualize Belichick’s success and to argue Brady’s value; contrasted via win percentages with/without Belichick.
• Robert Kraft — Person · Key referenced stakeholder · 1 mention · first at 21:58
  Discussed as Patriots owner tied to dynasty-era controversies and as a possible behind-the-scenes influence in Hall of Fame dynamics vs. Belichick.
• Eli Manning — Person · Referenced Hall of Fame candidate / example · 2 mentions · first at 15:35
  Discussed as a borderline/second-ballot Hall of Fame case; valued for beating the Brady–Belichick dynasty in two Super Bowls.
• Aaron Rodgers — Person · Referenced subject (separate segment topic) · 2 mentions · first at 17:36
  Discussed via Ian O’Connor’s book reporting and speculation about a potential reunion with Mike McCarthy (Steelers context in the transcript).
• Jimmy Johnson — Person · Referenced historical comparator (coach) · 2 mentions · first at 5:58
  Used as an example of an elite coach who maintained a strong win rate without his prime QB, contrasting with Belichick’s record without Brady.
  Marino's knees were shot. He couldn't move. He was old, grumpy Dan Marino. In fact, Jimmy had a higher winning percentage, believe it or not, in Miami without Aman.
• Joe Gibbs — Person · Referenced historical comparator (coach) · 2 mentions · first at 6:29
  Cited as an example of a coach who won multiple Super Bowls with different quarterbacks, supporting the argument about coaching portability.
  Joe Gibbs won a Super Bowl, three different quarterbacks. Bill Parcels won a Super Bowl with Phil Sims and Jeff Hostettler. Andy Reid wins with every quarterback. Got to a Super Bowl with.
• Bill Parcells — Person · Referenced historical comparator (coach) · 1 mention · first at 13:40
  Used as another example of a coach who won a Super Bowl with different QBs, contrasting with Belichick’s dependence on Brady in the argument.
  Joe Gibbs won a Super Bowl, three different quarterbacks. Bill Parcels won a Super Bowl with Phil Sims and Jeff Hostettler. Andy Reid wins with every quarterback. Got to a Super Bowl with Donovan McN.
• Mariano Rivera — Person · Referenced exemplar (Hall of Fame voting behavior) · 1 mention · first at 19:38
  Used to illustrate how voter sentiment and perceived character/media relations can influence unanimous Hall of Fame voting outcomes.
  They don't like me either. So that's all right. So, I said this yesterday. I said the only baseball player to ever get in, I believe, with 100% of the votes is Mariano Rivera.…

Companies & orgs

• NFL — Company · Business focus · 1 mention · first at 1:31
  The governing body of professional American football, involved in the Spygate controversy and Hall of Fame voting.
• The Athletic — Company · Referenced work · 5 mentions · first at 0:27
  Publication where Ian O'Conor's article on Bill Belichick's Hall of Fame snub was featured.
  Contextualization. Ian O' Conor is probably my most consistent columnist I trust for perspective and I read his story at the Athletic this morning about Bellich being snubbed…
• ESPN — Company · Referenced work · 2 mentions
  Sports network mentioned in the context of reporting on Spygate.
  Football operation. We're going to punish him probably for a year. Got to sleep on the couch. Seth Wickerssham, great reporter at the other place, ESPN, talked about Spygate and why that was the problem for some of the voters, not all some.
• NCAA — Company · Referenced work · 2 mentions
  Mentioned in comparison to NFL's handling of Spygate, regarding Jim Harbaugh's ban for illegal taping.
  Not saying it's right or wrong. It's reasonable to push the pause button for a year. For the record, Jim Harbaugh was banned for an illegal taping operation for 14 years by the NCAA.

Concepts & topics

• Spygate — Concept · Core topic · 9 mentions · first at 0:36
  Central controversy discussed regarding Bill Belichick's Hall of Fame snub, involving illegal taping operations by the New England Patriots.
• Deflategate — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at 21:16
  Another controversy involving the New England Patriots, mentioned alongside Spygate in the discussion about Bill Belichick's Hall of Fame snub.
  Difficult to deal with at times from a media perspective, but I really do not believe that was it. It was part of it was hey some people wanted to punish him for one year…

Places & events

• Cal — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 18:17
  University where Aaron Rodgers played before being drafted by the NFL.
  End of the day, we lit it up for a lot of years. And what people forget is Mike McCarthy changed Aaron Rogers entire style of play. When he got him out of Cal, he was very…

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Welcome to the Herds official YouTube channel, make sure to like and subscribe. Don't forget to check out the Colin Coward podcast, all of our NFL instant reactions and more football content. So, I want to start with this. Whenever there's a big big big story, a controversy, there's two or three or four columnists in the country or reporters I lean on and make sure I read their columns for some contextualization. Uh Ian O' Conor is probably my most consistent columnist I trust for perspective and I read his story at the Athletic this morning about uh Bellich being snubbed in the Hall of Fame and sure enough multiple sources saying it is Spygate.

0:40 Spygate. Some did bring up, according to the article, that he won 45% of his games without Brady and often was embarrassing, but it was overwhelmingly, according to multiple sources, Spygate that kept him out for a year. Okay, so once again, I will say nobody kicked Bill out of the Hall of Fame and nobody is banning him forever. He is getting a brief slap on the wrist for not just one spy gate. I think many of you have forgotten there were two spy gates. Both times New England had to surrender excellent draft picks.

1:21 Ask yourself this, folks. When's the last time your favorite team lost a first round pick or a third or your coach was fined a million dollars? Oh, the answer is never. The NFL doesn't do that and they don't like to do that to the reigning dynasty at the time. But what is amazing to me about yesterday's reaction to Bellich, I find this funny. I was at the other network for most of the dynasty. I stopped taking phone calls on it. You couldn't take a Patriot call. Everybody constantly said, "You can't trust these guys and gate this and gate that. You can't trust." 99% of the people that weren't Patriot fans always labeled them cheaters.

2:05 And yet yesterday, those same fans are outraged that the voters listened to you and said, "We're going to we're going to punish him." Not the whole team, not Brady, not Craft. We're going to punish Bill, who you know is the CEO of the football operation. We're going to punish him probably for a year. Got to sleep on the couch. Seth Wickerssham, great reporter at the other place, ESPN, talked about Spygate and why that was the problem for some of the voters, not all some. Look, they were taping it from the illegal location for seven years before they got caught. You know, the league had sent Bellich three letters warning him to stop and he didn't do it. So there was like an entire perception that the league was covering up and swept all this stuff under the rug for Bellich and for Robert Craft. You know, we wrote about Bill Polon in the article. You know, those teams that had to compete against Bellich haven't forgotten those

3:03 things. Nor would they ever, nor would you. Patriots won a lot of close games and had multiple six and seven figure finds for the coach. Lost a first round pick, couple of those, a third round pick. He's going to get in. This is not Pete Rose. But can we go to this excuse I heard a lot yesterday. Everybody does it. So if you got pulled over on the road, you had a couple cocktails and the cop pulls you over, you're a little tipsy, you turn to the cop, roll down the window, and go, "Hey." I mean, everybody does it. Would he say, "Be on your way." If you were audited by the IRS, couple of IRS agents come into your business, open that file cabinet or, you know, that disc that file and you just said, "Hey, listen. I know it looks a little shady, but uh, everybody does it." Well, they just walk out and go, "Be on your way.

4:01 Keep doing what you do." Folks, it was called an illegal an illegal taping operation. That's not what I'm calling it. That's what the league called it. The everybody does it excuse makes you and I sleep better. That doesn't get you past a governing body, a sanctioning body, a cop on the freeway after a couple of bruise, past the IRS agents. You know, there's a reason guys sleep on the couch. Everybody doesn't doesn't pass a smell test at home either. It just makes you sleep a little better. So, when an NFL franchise is levied huge seven figure fines and loses first round picks and a third round pick, I think it's reasonable reasonable. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. It's reasonable to push the pause button for a year. For the record, Jim Harbaugh was banned for an illegal taping operation for 14 years by the NCAA.

5:08 The everybody does it excuse. And I think 14 years is ridiculous. And I do think everybody in college to some degree does it. the NCAA, that cop on the freeway, your wife, the IRS agent, the Hall of Fame voters, they don't care. Not everybody ends up in Super Bowls. You know, yesterday we spent a lot of time talking about Bill Bellichic and Robert Craft. This sounds crazy to say, but I absolutely firmly believe what I'm about to say. Tom Brady's underrated. I said it. Think about this. This is not to discredit Bellich, who you all believe, and I think I probably do is the best coach in the history of the NFL.

5:58 So, Jimmy Johnson won a bunch of Super Bowls with Troy Aman. But even when Jimmy went to Miami without Troy Aman, who was in his prime with Jimmy, even with an old Dan Marino, Jimmy won 56% of his games in Miami. And Marino's knees were shot. He couldn't move. He was old, grumpy Dan Marino. In fact, Jimmy had a higher winning percentage, believe it or not, in Miami without Aman. Joe Gibbs won a Super Bowl, three different quarterbacks. Bill Parcels won a Super Bowl with Phil Sims and Jeff Hostettler. Andy Reid wins with every quarterback. Got to a Super Bowl with Donovan McN.

6:42 When you just pull Brady out of Bellich, he got fired a lot and won 45% of his games. And I think that speaks to how much Tom Brady takes off the table. Bellich didn't have to worry about negative plays and pre- snap penalties and dumb interceptions. Brady is underrated. All these other Hall of Fame quarterback, Hall of Fame coaches won with they didn't have to win Super Bowls, but they won. Kyle Shanahan got to a Super Bowl with Garopolo. He gets he can get to a Super Bowl or get to a conference championship with Brock Pury.

7:21 I mean, it's just incredible. I mean, John Harbaugh's winning with Lamar. He's winning with Joe Flacco. Andy Reid wins with everybody. Bellich, who we view as the greatest coach ever. You just pull Tom out. You can pull all these great receivers he had out. You can pull Gronk out. You can pull you pull Tom out, it all unfolds. It It just unravels and the house comes down. And I think that speaks again, winning percentage with Brady. Brady without Bellichic won 65% of his games. Brady wins everywhere. Bill without Tom 45%. And this is not to discredit Bill, but a lot of these coaches, they still had decent records. I mean, Mike Tomlin without Big Ben, he still got a winning record.

8:10 I mean, I mean, Sean McDermott got to the playoffs, you know, with Tyron Taylor considered like a high-end backup. So you and again, this is not to discredit, but I I think there are these occasional superstars that um you look at it and you're like, man, it's are are we giving them full credit for that? I don't know. With a big game coming up, we're all about enjoying the moment without paying for it the next day. Whether I'm hosting friends, jamming, cheering from the couch, heading to a watch party, I want to be fully present and still feel good in the morning. For me, that means planning ahead, especially if I'm going to have a few drinks. My simple trick, start the night with Zbiotics pre-alcohol.

8:58 Zbiotics pre-alcohol. Probiotic drink. The world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration, that's actually to blame for rough days after drinking. So, pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly. You'll feel your best tomorrow. If you're planning to enjoy the big game without sacrificing your productivity the next day, Zbiotics pre-alcohol has you covered. Start your night with pre-alcohol. Wake up ready to show up for work the next day.

9:46 zbiotics.com/theheerd. Go there now. 15% off your first order if you use the herd at checkout. It's backed by 100% money back guarantee. No risk. Subscriptions also available for maximum consistency. Remember zbiotics.com/theheerd. Use the code the herd at checkout for 15% off. Well, the author of six books, five are New York Times bestselling authors, uh, bestselling books. He is now at the Athletic. He's been at the New York Post. To me, he's the most dependable columnist in America, great reporter and a great writer. And a friend Ian O' Conor uh joining us now live, the article in the Athletic Today, very comprehensive, and it pointed to what I said about Spygate. I would have voted Bill in, but I'm not going to hammer the people, sports writers, whoever it is, who said, "Listen, Spygate, the NFL doesn't make Ian a regular habit of taking away first round picks and third round picks." There were

10:54 two spygates. They were worn for seven years. So, how do you answer to the people that say, "Yes, he's the best coach of all time, but there has to be attacks on Spygate."

11:06 I I think it's a fair opinion, Colin. I would just say this. Let's Let's take early in the 2007 season when it's uncovered and he is found to have cheated and broken the rules and all that with Spygate. If you go forward from that point on, so I'm going to hand you back his first three Super Bowl championship trophies. take them off the board. Okay, they're yours. Go from that point forward. He went to six Super Bowls. He won three of them. He went to nine AFC Championship games and won 12 divisions, division titles. I mean, so like I think Spygate should have been brought up in the discussion with the voting committee without question. But I think it's a five-minute discussion because if you just go forward from 2007 when he was caught early in week one, so he goes 18-0, maybe the best team in the history of American sports not to win a championship, and then does what he does in big games going forward. He's a slam

12:01 dunk Hall of Famer, even if you hand back the first three trophies. So that's how I would handle it. I think it is worthy of being discussed, but it should have been maybe a five minute part of the conversation and it was longer than that.

12:15 Yeah. I mean, by the way, you have a baseball hall of fame vote and there were peed situations. How did you view the PED stuff in baseball as attacks?

12:24 So, just like I felt that Bellichic's career completely overwhelmed Spygate. I feel like in the case of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, same thing. Seventime MVP with Bonds, seventime Sai Young winner in Clemens, the two most decorated players in the history of the BBWA, the organization I represent when I cast the ballot. So I voted for those two guys. They're two of the top eight players in the history of baseball by the measurement of war. And I didn't vote for the other peed guys because I felt they fell below that standard and should be penalized for their cheating.

13:00 when you completely overwhelm the transgression the way Bellichic did, then I think again you are a no-brainer Hall of Famer. And that should have been the case here instead of the biggest embarrassment in the history of the Hall of Fame.

13:14 Um all the I Yeah, this this is good stuff. Okay, I it is interesting is that and I wouldn't hold this against him, but Jimmy Johnson without Troy Aman in his prime went to Miami with an old immobile Marino and actually had a higher winning percentage in Miami than he did in Dallas. Joe Gibbs won three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks. Parcels won two with Hostettler and Sims. And by the way, Bill Walsh and Vince Lombardi did not get in the first year of eligibility. Could I argue this with Belich? Okay, Bill, listen. They just changed the methodology. If Shoula had to wait five years, and by the way, got to the Super Bowl with David Woodley, Earl Moral, and Marino. I'm not putting you in first year when I when I the accumulation of Spygate, your record without Brady.

14:10 Everybody else waited. Is that a reasonable argument? I I don't think so. Again, I think the record is so staggering,

14:18 okay, with or without the cheating that that he has to go in on the first ballot. It's not his fault they changed the rules and they no longer have to wait five years and it's it's a one-year deal and he's in front of you. I just there's no good excuse for not voting for the greatest NFL coach of all time. No matter how you slice it now, listen, the Hall of Fame needs to fix some things here. You can't have senior players competing against coaches and contributors in a category where you're only allowed to vote for three of the five guys. Why can't you vote for all five if you think they're worthy? If that were the case, Bellichic would be in and you wouldn't have this embarrassment. And so that the the other thing, and this is a minor tweak, but it would help go from 80% down to 75% which is the baseball standard.

15:03 Yes. And I I think if that had been in play here already, if those rules and listen, Deion Sanders and other players complained in the past that it was too easy to get into the Hall of Fame and that was the reason why they overcorrected. Now they got to overorrect going back the other way because the backlog is such where guys like even Tom Coughlin and and other coaches now have to probably wait another year because Bellichic will go in next year. That backlog is getting dangerous.

15:33 Yeah. and it needs to be corrected. Okay. Eli Manning second year didn't get in. I would put him in probably second ballot. I wouldn't put him first ballot. I don't think you can tell the story of the the league uh without Eli Manning. In fact, you can't. I do think it's not that he won two Super Bowls. I think it's so significant that he beat Bellich the best coach, Brady the best player, and there's an argument outside of the Bradshaw Lynn Swan catch. He had the two most memorable catches in Super Bowl history. I wouldn't put him in first ballot because he was kind of a middling regular season quarterback. I would have put him in on this ballot. Am I reaching there?

16:15 No. I I I think that's right. I'm not sure he's a first ballot guy either. And he was a 500 quarterback in the regular season. He only won postseason games in the two years he won Super Bowls. But those performances, those throws down the stretch to beat the greatest coach quarterback partnership in the history of the league, playing in New York with that last name, following his brother, I do think those are tiebreers that go in his favor. And yeah, is he a first ballot guy? Probably not, but I would have put him in this year. And I think he will. I think he will eventually get in. But again, that backlog with modern era players, it's going to get dicey.

16:50 and the Hall of Fame needs to ease the voting standards, the floor of the uh induction standards have to be changed and to allow some of these worthy players to get in.

17:01 Um, okay. So, you wrote another book I read, Out of the Darkness, the Mystery of Aaron Rogers. Fantastic read. So, and I want to you you can take um your time obviously on this is that I said I could see Mike McCarthy and Aaron saying, "Let's just make it work. Let's sew this wound up. Let's just do it. I can also see the Steelers saying, "We drafted Will Howard. It's a great draft next year for quarterbacks. Aaron, we want to see if Will can play. We got to figure this out. We're going to give him 17 start. We don't want him sitting it behind you. Either way, I'd be comfortable with Aaron has said publicly, Mike and I are good. Mike has said it publicly. You know, as well as anybody. What people say, you know, in front of the camera is not what they're saying behind it. Do you think McCarthy and Aaron could work for at least one year in Pittsburgh together?

17:53 I do. I do. And I did speak with both Aaron and McCarthy for my book. I did ask them that question. Uh and their relationship is better now than it ever was. When they were together in Green Bay and Rogers said to me, "Listen, we did butttheads from time to time, even though I think it was more often than that. But at the end of the day, we lit it up for a lot of years. And what people forget is Mike McCarthy changed Aaron Rogers entire style of play. When he got him out of Cal, he was very robotic. He had the ball back at his earhole. And

18:24 McCarthy loosened him up and made him a more athletic player and really helped develop him into an all-time great and never gets any credit for that. So listen, McCarthy's on record saying he wants him. Most of the Steelers players want him back, if not all of them. And so I think that Rogers will play one more year because it is McCarthy. He might be the only coach that he would have stayed in Pittsburgh to play for. So what is the ceiling for this partnership? Probably 11 and six at best winning a playoff game. So if you're a Steelers fan, you're saying, "Well, we can't win the Super Bowl with with this partnership, but we can have a a productive season." I will say if they're three and six, I think there needs to be a discussion about maybe even in advance, though you don't want to deal in negative hypotheticals, but then Will Howard has to be in play. If the season is getting away from McCarthy

19:15 and Rogers, then I think they have to turn to the young quarterback. Um, you know, yesterday a lot of fan listen people don't trust the media. They don't like us. They trust you, but they don't like the media.

19:28 They don't like me either. So that's all right. So, I said this yesterday. I said the only baseball player to ever get in, I believe, with 100% of the votes is Mariano Rivera. He's not doing it on innings pitched. He's doing it on excellence. And he was maybe the most humble, graceful, gracious athlete. You know, he's in that Kofax where you can't find a bad word about him. And I mean, Hank Aaron, Ken Griffy, I mean there's just all these great players. You're like, they didn't get a 100% of the vote. And so my take is Mariano was such a pleasure to deal with that it did matter to the voters is that they liked him and people and people yesterday said well you guys didn't like Bellich and my take is listen it's not that Bill didn't ignore the media he was obnoxious.

20:19 Um, again, it shouldn't count, but I think Bill needed a tad bit of awareness for the for the last 15 years in New England knowing those are the guys voting for you. What do you make of the assertion that people just had it out for Bill because he wasn't he wasn't, you know, he was he was overly uh harsh, blunt, and dismissive of the media. And by the way, Colin, did you know that 11 voters did not vote for Babe Ruth on on the first ballot?

20:50 I read that yesterday. I read that. So, you can't please everybody. I guess I would say that had nothing to do with it,

20:58 okay, with Bellichic. I talked to a number of voters and just my own experience with the guy and and I understand he was difficult to deal with at times from a media perspective, but I really do not believe that was it. It was part of it was hey some people wanted to punish him for one year because of Spygate and maybe a little bit of deflategate. I think voting a lot of people wanted to vote for the senior players instead of the the coach and the contributor and other people assumed Bellichic was getting in. Well, he doesn't need my vote so I'm going to reserve my votes for other candidates. There was a lot of that. I think Spygate probably cost him three or four votes out of the 11 or 12 but that cost them induction,

21:38 right? And that's where we go back to whether or not you believe a one-year penalty was warranted. And in my opinion, it wasn't simply because the winning was so staggering that it just knocked Spygate out of the park.

21:52 One final question. Ian O' Conor at the Athletic for our radio audience. It has been suggested uh and you would know this that Robert Craft didn't want to go in the same year as Bellichic. He didn't want to be and they don't they don't see eye to eye. There was a documentary done that did feel like Bellich, it felt like Craft wanted to lean in a little bit on Bellich. I think that's reasonable. Um, what about that assertion? I I don't think it's a conspiracy theory. I don't think it rises to that. I think it's a reasonable discussion that Craft squeezed some people.

22:26 Yeah, I I guess it's possible. I do know that Bellichic would walk by Craft in the hallway sometimes and not even say hi to him. And at the end of the day, Craft deserves a lot of credit for keeping that group uh together for Brady and Bellichic. Obviously, at odds at times, it was really more like Brady and Craft versus Bellichic than anything else, but they made it work over time. They deserved a lot of credit for that. Uh I think it's possible Craft might have whispered to a couple of voters, and I do think that he would love to get into the Hall of Fame ahead of Bill Bellichic. He's been waiting long enough. By the way, Craft has gone to 11 Super Bowls since Jerry Jones has appeared in one. And Jones is in the Hall of Fame and Craft isn't, so maybe that gets rectified now. We'll see. But yeah, he would love to get in ahead of Bill without question.

23:11 Ian, it's great to see you. Good luck to you and the fam and love your work at the Athletic. Congrats on all your success.

23:18 You're the best, Colin. Thanks. All right. Uh, very comprehensive. If there's ever a big story, that's the one of the two or three people I go to. Uh, Ian O' Conor. Yeah,

23:30 that's that's it. Yeah, the craft thing. There was that documentary. What was that done by? Um, who did that documentary? Did Apple do that? Um, all right. It wasn't Gotham Chopra. It was It was Apple. Okay. It was Apple. All right. Because there was that documentary done and I know a lot of Patriot fans thought it was very heavy-handed. They thought it was very much uh beating up on Bill and I watched it and I thought it did favor Craft. I don't think I I took it to that level. It it it Listen, when you're difficult, you know, I've used the argument of Bobby Knight. When you're just difficult and and and and rough and curt and dismissive, uh you're going to wear some people out. I mean, it's it's that's just life. That's the way it is. It was uh it was Apple. Let's see. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

24:31 Produced by Brian Graaser. Okay, thanks, guys. Um, Enron Howard. Okay, there it was. There's so There's so many documentaries out there on dynasties, I I lose count, but yeah, people felt that it was a little heavy-handed. Robert Craft had his way in the documentary. It did feel like it was it was definitely pro- Robert Craft who I mean 11 Super Bowls, four four franchises. have never been to

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Why Patriots SPYGATE CONTROVERSY cost Bill Belichick Hall of Fame | Colin Cowherd: THE HERD NFL"?

Colin Cowherd (Host), Ian O'Connor (Guest).

What is "Why Patriots SPYGATE CONTROVERSY cost Bill Belichick Hall of Fame | Colin Cowherd: THE HERD NFL" about?

The discussion centers around the impact of the Spygate controversy on Bill Belichick's Hall of Fame candidacy, with reports indicating that it played a significant role in his exclusion this year. The narrative highlights that while Belichick's coaching success is notable, recurring issues related to rule violations have led to a perceived stigma, ultimately affecting his recognition in the…

What is mentioned in this The Herd with Colin Cowherd episode?

17 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Bill Belichick, Spygate, Ian O'Connor, Ian Brady, NFL, Robert Kraft. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Why Patriots SPYGATE CONTROVERSY cost Bill Belichick Hall of Fame | Colin Cowherd: THE HERD NFL"?

The episode runs 25 min; the transcript is about 4,350 words in 41 timestamped sections.

More from The Herd with Colin Cowherd

• All analyzed episodes
• People mentioned on The Herd with Colin Cowherd
• Topics mentioned on The Herd with Colin Cowherd