Belichick’s snub is an embarrassment, plus an Australian Open upset

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Good morning! Don’t be petty today. Inside: 

• 🤔 Belichick’s shocking snub
• 🎾 Djokovic bailed out
• 💃 USWNT dances to win

Yuck: A Hall of Fame-worthy snub

There is a level of absurdity you have to accept to simply be a fan of professional team sports. A group of athletes dressed in bright costumes, playing a game to entertain us, in order to make themselves and owners money. Sports are, by design, not that serious. 

But there is a modicum of meaningfulness in which we reside. Sports have created some of the best community spaces that exist on the planet. They have history, which serves as the ultimate baseline of logic and organization for our favorite teams and leagues. We all witness greatness, generation after generation, whether it’s on our team or someone else’s. And whatever your preferred metric of greatness, Bill Belichick clears it.

Belichick, despite his recent foibles, is the epitome of greatness in football. No one, not even his biggest detractors, can argue his resume. Which is why last night’s news that Belichick won’t be a first-ballot Hall of Famer is so shocking. 

It is difficult to even square. A few maddening levels here: 

• The Hall adopted stricter rules for selection in August 2024, but that’s not even a cop-out here. Belichick, 73, won six Super Bowls as a head coach and two more as a defensive coordinator. He has 302 regular-season wins, good for third all-time behind Don Shula and George Halas. He also won 31 postseason games, the most of any coach ever. This line doesn’t pass the smell test.
  
  
• Which brings us to our most likely culprit: the cheating scandals. In order to win entry, Belichick needed 40 votes in a panel of 50 members. This was the first potential reason Mike Sando noted in our story and is backed up by an ESPN article that first reported the news. Both Spygate and Deflategate are blips on Belichick’s career, sure, but Deflategate didn’t even directly involve the coach.
  
  
• In a tough twist, Belichick was up for election with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, whose relationship with Belichick soured completely after the coach and team parted ways in January 2024. ESPN reported in that piece that former Colts general manager (and Kraft supporter) Bill Polian told voters that Belichick deserved to wait a year as punishment for Spygate. Polian partially refuted the report, but did say the idea was “floated” in the voting room. 

It’s just all so … lame. Embarrassing. The idea of allowing political pettiness to get in the way of such an honor goes against the entire code. If true, it makes a mockery of the process. And to be clear, the entire sports world was flummoxed by this, even Belichick’s fiercest foes.  

Read Steve Buckley’s great column on the sham here. The comments on our main story were also incredible. 

We’ll have more tomorrow. Yuck.

News to Know

Pegula in, Coco out
Late last night, Jessica Pegula topped Amanda Anisimova in a battle of American women in the Australian Open quarterfinals, sending Pegula to the semifinals to face Elena Rybakina, who upset No. 2 seed Iga Świątek yesterday. American star Coco Gauff is done, though, after a stunning loss to Elina Svitolina. Cameras caught Gauff smashing her racket afterward, which was a controversy in itself. 

On the men’s side, Novak Djokovic is through to the semifinals due to a second straight opponent retiring due to injury. This one, against Lorenzo Musetti, came with Djokovic down two sets.

Bills promote Brady
Joe Brady is the new head coach in Buffalo, the team announced yesterday, elevating its offensive coordinator of two years to replace his old boss. It is a curious decision. Brady, just 36, has plenty of positives, notably the support of quarterback Josh Allen, who has thrived in Brady’s offense. And yet it’s confusing to go in-house a week after the owner was blaming the, ahem, coaching staff for drafting Keon Coleman, in a news conference discussing the dismissal of one of the most successful coaches in franchise history. Read our full story here. 

• Elsewhere in coaching news, we have more baffling Jets stories. The franchise reached out to Jon Gruden to join Aaron Glenn’s staff, but the former coach declined. Zack Rosenblatt has a detailed report inside a week of “turmoil.”

More news: 

• New Steelers coach Mike McCarthy said he wants Aaron Rodgers back on the team next season. See his full comments.
  
• Former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding pleaded not guilty to 17 felony charges, including conspiracy to murder and drug distribution. More details here. 
• The federal government is investigating more NBA games as part of its illegal gambling probe.
  
• Duke and now-former quarterback Darian Mensah ended their legal battle yesterday, clearing the way for Mensah to transfer to Miami.
  
• The NCAA confirmed it is looking into Clemson coach Dabo Swinney’s allegations of tampering levied at Ole Miss. More mess.
  
• No. 3 Michigan men’s basketball beat No. 5 Nebraska, 75-72, in what was a fantastic game. It’s the Cornhuskers’ first loss of the season. The Huskers are a fun story this year, though.
  
• Caitlin Clark is joining NBC Sports for its Sunday night NBA pregame show. Read the full story.