2027 Hall of Fame Coaching Candidates

Continuing where we left off with the contributors, we now need to talk about the five coaching candidates for the for the Hall of Fame class of 2027, where again one of the five semifinalists will make the final ballot.

...It'll be Bill Belichick. But I suppose we should go through the motions anyway.

The five nominees, cut down from a previous list of 14 we never got to see, are:

• Bill Belichick: NFL coach from 1975-2023 with head coaching jobs with the Cleveland Browns (1991-95) and New England Patriots (2000-2023). Career record: 333-178 (including playoffs) with six Super Bowl titles as a head coach and two others as an assistant.
• Tom Coughlin: Spent 20 years as an NFL head coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars (1995-2002) and New York Giants (2004-2015). Including playoffs, posted a 182-157 record and led the Giants to two Super Bowl titles. Also won a title with Giants as an assistant coach.
• Mike Holmgren: Head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1992-98 and the Seattle Seahawks from 1999-2008; won a Super Bowl ring in two Super Bowl trips with the Packers and appeared in another Super Bowl as head coach of the Seahawks. Career record: 174-122 (including postseason). Also won two Super Bowls as an assistant with the San Francisco 49ers.
• Dan Reeves: Head coach of the Denver Broncos (1981-1992), New York Giants (1993-96) and Atlanta Falcons (1997-2003). Career record: 201-174-2 (including postseason). Led Broncos (three times) and Falcons (once) to the Super Bowl. Won a title as an assistant with the Dallas Cowboys.
• Mike Shanahan: Head coach of the Los Angeles Raiders (1988-89), Denver Broncos (1995-2008) and Washington Redskins (2010-13). Won back-to-back Super Bowls with the Broncos while compiling a 178-144 career record (including playoffs). Also won a title with the San Francisco 49ers as an assistant coach.

Right. So, the decision to pick Belichick will take about 30 seconds when the group meets on November 17th, I am sure. The Hall just revamped their whole voting procedure after Belichick's snub last year, changing both the process of inducting guys and the membership voting on them. Not sending Belichick through on the first ballot last year caused an angry mob of Patriots fans to perform a witch hunt voters with actual death threats sent. If they keep him out this time, they're going to burn the Hall down.

Belichick is one of them most qualified people for the Hall, period. You could make an argument that, outside of the George Halas-types who founded the league, Belichick is the most qualified coach period. He has more Super Bowl rings than anyone else on the planet, thanks to his six wins as head coach of the Patriots and two as an assistant under Bill Parcells with the Giants. Only Don Shula and George Halas won more regular season games than Belichick, and Belichick passes Halas when you include the playoffs. Only Paul Brown won more titles, and that requires counting his four AAFC titles as NFL-equivalent feats. No one has won their conference more frequently than Belichick. Heck, he was even a little better than average coaching the Cleveland Browns, which nowadays seems to qualify you for sainthood.

Spygate will forever be a blemish on his record, of course, but I mean...come on. We don't really need to debate Belichick's credentials, do we? And if we started leaving out every coach who every pushed the boundaries of the rulebook looking for a competitive advantage, we are going to have to throw half the Hall out. George Halas tricked the Buffalo All-Americans into playing a game they thought didn't count for the standings to steal the 1921 title. Paul Brown snuck players past the roster limit by having a friend who owned a taxicab company keep them on the payroll, hence the origin of "taxi squad". From hiring lip-readers to allegedly tapping into the headsets of the opposing squads, there's a long history of coaches pushing the boundaries of what they can get away with.

No, Belichick will go through, and I fully expect Belichick to sail through the process this year. With voters getting to vote for six of the final seven, the odds of a qualified candidate getting shunted aside thanks to strategic undervoting are smaller, and that's before you get into the idea that the voters know that they done messed up last year and will be desperate not to let that happen again. I would be pretty surprised if he's not unanimous this time around.

Belichick's snub last year ends up being bad news for players on the edge of getting elected – guys like Terrell Suggs, Marshal Yanda or Willie Anderson, who were the last three cut in the voting in 2026. Under the old rules, Belichick would have his own special slot in the voting process. In 2027, he's just one of 15 names that people will have to consider, and with all due respect to those above gentlemen, Belichick would take priority in my book, and I think most other books.

Of the other four, Shanahan and Holmgren feel like they'll be dueling for this slot next year.

Everyone with more than two championships is in the Hall of Fame, apart from Belichick and the still-active Andy Reid. Shanahan and Coughlin are part of the small group of coaches with two titles not yet in, alongside George Seifert, Buddy Parker and Lou Saban, so they would be logical picks. But it's not just a ring-counting exercise, and I think Holmgren's impact does put him over Coughlin in my book – one of just seven coaches ever to bring two different teams to the Hall of Fame and turning around both the Packers and Seahawks, his legacy as a quarterback whisperer and his ensuing coaching tree, and so on and so forth.

But this is an argument for 12 months from now, and I'm sure we'll hash it out in excruciating detail. For now, Belichick goes through. Or else, I guess.