Tony Dungy isn’t saying whether he voted for Bill Belichick, and that silence is drawing heat.
Dungy was one of nearly two dozen Pro Football Hall of Fame voters who lost their voting rights after new guidelines were put in place following Belichick’s failure to make the Hall of Fame this year. Since then, Dungy has declined to say how he cast his ballot, and fans clearly haven’t loved the way he’s handled it.
On The Sage Steele Show, Dungy doubled down on his refusal to discuss the vote and said he believes Belichick should have been inducted.
“I wouldn’t talk about it, I haven’t talked about it and I won’t talk about it,” Dungy said. “Everybody thinks Bill should’ve gotten in.
There were 50 people that voted and that was the process and I’ve always said I stood with the voters. That’s how we voted under the rules that we had and under the old rules he would’ve gotten in…”
Dungy also tried to frame Belichick’s first-ballot miss as something that doesn’t diminish his place among the game’s best, pointing to Vince Lombardi’s own delayed Hall of Fame entry.
The response online was brutal. Fans accused Dungy of hiding a vote against Belichick and doing it for petty reasons.
Barstool’s Jerry Thornton wrote on X, “Tony Dungy doesn’t like paying a price for secretly blowing up Belichick’s HOF vote out of pure petty, vindictive spite. Just own it, fraud,” while another user said, “He’s a complete piece of (expletive) and the worst part is that he’s a coward.
Gotta talk in circles whenever you get asked cause you too scared to stand on your reasoning,” wrote another. “So that’s a no.
Love Dungy but he’s a clown,” a third user wrote. “He won 8 championships.
He’s a HOF. Tony is an excellent coach, but he’s a bozo for copping this plea here.”
Dungy’s history against Belichick only adds another layer to the conversation. In his seven seasons leading the Indianapolis Colts, Belichick’s Patriots beat him in the 2003 and 2005 playoffs and also took two regular season games from 2004 through 2007.
Still, Dungy had success of his own against New England. He beat Belichick’s Patriots in three regular season games and also won the 2006 AFC Championship Game before his Colts went on to beat the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI.
So while some fans are convinced the rivalry drove the vote, the record doesn’t make that case cleanly. And with Dungy refusing to reveal how he voted, the question is likely to hang around.
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