The significant change, according to the Hall's Joe Horrigan, was under consideration for some time because coaches were leaving the sidelines, then returning after their bronze bust was residing in Canton, Ohio.
''Since coaches were retiring at earlier ages and then coming back out of retirement, a waiting period similar to players made sense,'' Horrigan told The Miami Herald in an e-mail. ``Also, sometimes the difference between an official retirement and a temporary hiatus from coaching was increasingly difficult to discern.''
The change protects the Hall's integrity. It is smart thinking and, at first glance, nothing that would cause ripples around the NFL's South Florida outpost.
Don Shula, after all, was elected a decade ago, and no coach with Dolphins ties has since made a case for remaining employed, much less being considered for the Hall of Fame.
Until now.
Under the old rule, Dolphins football czar Bill Parcells would have been eligible for Hall of Fame consideration this year. He last coached with the Dallas Cowboys in 2006, and that means his career 183-131-1 record would have brought him consideration.
Now, however, any aspiration Parcells has of reaching football immortality has to wait until 2012. That is his first year of eligibility under the new rule.
And that changes a lot of things.
If he were eligible this year, today, the argument for voting Parcells into the Hall of Fame would be compelling.
Nevermind that his 183 career victories put him in the top 10 in that category. Forget that his .579 playoff winning percentage is better than Hall of Famers Tom Landry, Paul Brown and, yes, Shula.
A Hall of Famer should be more than raw statistics that can be twisted and spun. A Hall of Famer should have a history that speaks about excellence.
Parcells has that.
He took four different teams to the playoffs. No coach in NFL history has done that. He turned around a New York Giants franchise that had one winning season in the decade before he took over. He had the New England Patriots in the playoffs two seasons after they were 2-14 and took them to the Super Bowl in 1996.
He turned a 1-15 Jets team into a Super Bowl contender in two seasons. And he had Dallas in the playoffs after three 5-11 seasons in a row.
So if Parcells were eligible for election now, his history of turning bad into good, chumps into champs, would make him a certain inductee.
But the voters who will consider Parcells in 2012 will be fed another set of facts that aren't in play today.
Four years from now, the job Parcells does as the Dolphins' architect also will be on his résumé, and, fair or not, that will work for or against him.
No, he is not Miami's coach. He is not general manager. But he is everything to the Dolphins.
It could be fairly argued that Parcells' work in Miami should not enter the Hall of Fame conversation at all. But the fact is, Hall voters allow their debates to include practically all of the facts.
They consider off-field behavior for players, even though, at that level of accomplishment, off-field issues didn't affect performance. They consider whether too many players from one team are being inducted in the same year, and in what order those players should go in.
In Parcells' case, the voters already have turned him away four times -- in 1991, 1992, 2001 and 2002 -- over an issue that had nothing to do with his coaching ability or record.
Voters were not certain Parcells had retired, and the debate raged over that instead of his accomplishments. If the voters considered that, they definitely will look at what Parcells does with the Dolphins.
If the Dolphins falter, his reputation will suffer even as his record remains the same.
But if he turns Miami around, as he did with his other teams, he will punctuate a fine career with an exclamation point. His would be an open-and-shut case for induction in a recast first year of eligibility.
