Check out the clip from the ceremony -- the audience was enthusiastically applauding Sunday as photos of the departed flashed onscreen ... but when O.J.'s picture appeared, labeling him  "Former NFL Player," an awkward silence enveloped the room.

As the shock wore off, a few hesitant claps could be heard ... but the atmosphere remained uneasy.

One thing was clear: O.J. didn't come close to receiving the thunderous applause Clarence Avant, Willie Mays, Louis Gossett Jr., Carl Weathers, and Bill Cobbs did.

The In Memoriam segment was intro'd as "honoring Black excellence that we unfortunately lost this year."

O.J. died in April at age 76 from prostate cancer, following several months in hospice care.

His passing stirred mixed reactions -- some in the football community honored the athlete, while others remembered Simpson, who was acquitted of double murder in 1995, as a killer.

TMZ's Tubi doc, "O.J. How He Really Did It," chronicles Harvey Levin's experience covering the murder trial, with never-before-heard stories about the case.