Tom Coughlin and Bill Belichick are back in the same conversation, this time as two of the five coaching finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s 2027 class.
The Hall announced Thursday that Coughlin, Belichick, Dan Reeves, Mike Holmgren and Mike Shanahan are the remaining names in the mix after the coaching subcommittee trimmed an original field of 14 candidates.
Next up is Nov. 17, when the subcommittee will choose one coach to send to the Hall’s main Selection Committee. That group will then decide whether to put that candidate into the overall Class of 2027.
It’s the same five coaches who reached this stage last year, and the subcommittee again picked Belichick. But the Selection Committee did not induct him into the Class of 2026, despite it being his first year of eligibility, a decision that drew widespread outrage.
Coughlin, 80, built his Hall case with two Super Bowl wins over Belichick’s Patriots, taking the Giants to titles in Super Bowls XLII and XLVI. Across 20 seasons leading the Jaguars and Giants, he finished 182-157, including the playoffs.
“You want to be the very, very best you can be,” Coughlin said in 2014, toward the end of his Giants tenure. “If the highest point in recognition in our game is the Hall of Fame, then why not think about that?
Do I think about it every day? No.”
Belichick, 74, owns six Super Bowl rings as Patriots head coach and also won Super Bowls XXI and XXV as the Giants’ defensive coordinator under Bill Parcells. Over 29 seasons as head coach of the Browns and Patriots, he went 333-178 (.647), and his 333 combined regular-season and playoff wins rank second in NFL history behind Don Shula’s 347.
“If he’s not a first-ballot Hall of Famer, there’s really no coach that should ever be a first-ballot Hall of Famer,” Tom Brady said after last year’s omission on Seattle Sports 710-AM. “Which is completely ridiculous, because people deserve it.”
Reeves spent part of his career with the Giants from 1993-96, sandwiched between longer runs with the Broncos and Falcons, and finished 201-174-2 over 23 seasons. He went 0-4 in Super Bowls as a head coach, reaching the game three times with Denver and once with Atlanta, though he did win a championship as an assistant with the Cowboys.
Shanahan guided Denver to back-to-back Super Bowl titles after the 1997 and 1998 seasons, while Holmgren’s Packers won the championship for the 1996 season.
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