Tony Dungy has kept his vote on Bill Belichick under lock and key since February, and a new interview with Sage Steele brought the subject right back around.
Steele, host of “The Sage Steele Show,” posted a segment Tuesday billed as the reason Dungy won’t say whether he voted for Belichick in the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026 election.
Belichick, who won six Super Bowls as the New England Patriots’ head coach, needed 40 of the 50 votes but, unfortunately, didn’t reach that tally this time.
Tony Dungy’s Committee Oath Leaves Critics Unconvinced on Bill Belichick Vote
Steele posted a clip of her interview with Dungy, titled “Why Tony Dungy Won’t Reveal His Bill Belichick HOF Vote,” with a link to the segment, reopening a question Dungy has fielded repeatedly this year.
At NBC’s media event ahead of Super Bowl LX, Dungy declined to get into it, telling Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel he wouldn’t comment until the class was announced. Five days later, with the class public, Jac Collinsworth asked him on NBC’s Super Bowl pregame show whether he voted for Belichick.
Dungy said he wouldn’t disclose it, citing an oath voters take not to discuss the committee’s debates or anything that happened there. “I’m not going to put any of my teammates under the bus, who they voted for, who I voted for.”
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He did not question Belichick’s credentials. “Bill Belichick definitely deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.” Dungy insisted the committee did not vote against Belichick, blaming a change the Hall made two years earlier and arguing the same vote totals under the old rules would have put him in.
Voters could pick only three of the five finalists in that category, a group of Belichick, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Ken Anderson, Roger Craig and L.C. Greenwood, and only Craig was elected.
Rodney Harrison, Dungy’s NBC colleague, told him on the same broadcast that the committee got it wrong.
Jerry Thornton, a Barstool Sports veteran of more than two decades, answered Steele’s post with a far less charitable theory about why Dungy won’t talk. “Tony Dungy doesn’t like paying a price for secretly blowing up Belichick’s HOF vote out of pure petty, vindictive spite,” he wrote.
Dungy’s ballot has never been made public. Belichick’s shortfall means at least 11 voters left him off, and two of them, the Kansas City Star’s Vahe Gregorian and Indianapolis reporter Mike Chappell, have said so publicly. Fox News reported in February that Dungy is allowed to reveal his own vote, just not anyone else’s.
For some, the silence settled it. “Him not saying it is saying it,” one fan replied.
Belichick has stayed out of the guessing game. Asked on Fox News Media’s “Hang Out with Sean Hannity” in May about missing out, the North Carolina head coach pointed back at the room. “You’d have to ask the voters.”
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Fans Welcome Tony Dungy’s Removal From Hall of Fame Selection Committee
Dungy is no longer one of them. The Hall announced on Sept. 4 that it was cutting its selection committee from 50 members to 28, with 25 voting each year, returning to an in-person meeting and eliminating the Seniors category so all eligible players compete in one pool.
Dungy was among 27 people removed from the committee, ending a six-year run as a voter.
Some fans saw the move as overdue. One replied, “Undeserving of the honor of being a HoF coach; glad he no longer has a vote.”
“I’m not bitter or upset or anything about not being on,” Dungy told USA Today’s Jarrett Bell in September, adding that he enjoyed his time on the committee. Bell reported that Dungy still won’t publicly reveal how he voted on any candidate and was careful not to criticize the committee or Hall administrators.
Not every critic turned on Dungy entirely. Another fan wrote, “Love Tony, definitely deserved to lose his vote.”
As things stand, Belichick is eligible again for the Class of 2027. Under the new bylaws, a subcommittee will choose one coach candidate each year for the 28-member committee to take up at its in-person meeting.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.