NFL News: Patriots Owner Bob Kraft Not Elected to Hall of Fame

• New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft was not elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
• The revelation comes as the Patriots prepare for the Super Bowl, days after his estranged former head coach, Bill Belichick, was also denied entry
• There’s a reasonable argument that Kraft was more important to the Pats’ success over a longer period of time than Belichick and Tom Brady
• Expect anger at Kraft not getting elected, but not the Incredible Hulk rage that accompanied Belichick’s denial
• How might the NFL change its voting and election process in light of these perceived glaring omissions?

2027 Hall of Fame Odds for the 2026 Snubbed

Were the Pats Due to Belichick? Brady? Or Maybe…Kraft

It’s always difficult to gauge how much credit or blame an owner should receive for their team’s results. Hands-on owners are called “meddlers.” If they’re hands-off, they’re called absentee owners. While fans, the media, and often their employees would prefer they sign the checks and stay out of the way, it’s unrealistic to think that anyone wealthy enough to buy a sports franchise will recede into the background and allow subordinates to take all the credit.

Kraft is unique in that he wasn’t a wealthy heir who woke up one day and decided that it’d be a fun and easy way to get attention by purchasing a sports franchise. Nor was he a businessman who’d accrued such wealth through his endeavors that he could pay out of pocket for a team. He didn’t inherit the team itself.

He was an undoubtedly successful businessman, but he leveraged himself to the maximum to come up with the money to buy the Patriots in part because he wanted to prevent the franchise from being moved to St. Louis, which was a very real threat at the time.

Not only did he save the franchise in New England, but they became the preeminent organization in sports.

But it didn’t happen overnight.

As the above tweet says, the one constant in the Patriots’ three-plus-decade run with 11 Conference Championships and six Super Bowl wins was Kraft.

Was he picking the players? No.

Did he formulate the gameplans? No.

Was he throwing the passes or making the blocks? No.

Did he ever portray himself as doing so? No.

But he gave his coaches everything they needed to win. He did intervene when players did not live up to the code of conduct he created for his franchise. Such was the case with Christian Peter. Drafted by Bill Parcells after several run-ins with the law while at Nebraska, Peter was immediately cut when Kraft became apprised of his past.

The Bill Belichick-Tom Brady years might have been a perfect storm that Kraft allowed to flourish. But it might not have happened at all had he not had the foresight to hire Belichick after having been warned by anyone and everyone not to. He then let Belichick keep Drew Bledsoe on the bench in favor of Brady.

As a newbie owner, he somehow managed to endure Parcells and get to a Super Bowl. And he made the bold and ridiculed move in firing Jerrod Mayo after one year when he saw that it wasn’t going to work with him as head coach, subsequently jumping at the chance to get Mike Vrabel.

Now he’s back in the Super Bowl.

The Hall of Fame Has Inducted a Diverse List of Owners

Some owners who have been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame are no-brainers for their contributions. The Giants’ Tim and Wellington Mara were founders of the NFL, as was the Bears’ George Halas.

Eddie DeBartolo Jr. of the 49ers rebuilt a dead franchise, hired Bill Walsh, who changed the game with his West Coast offense, and showed the value of treating players like royalty when teams were not obligated to do so through collective bargaining or for any other reason.

Al Davis was a coach, a commissioner, a GM, and an owner with the Raiders. His credentials are unquestioned.

Jerry Jones is in the Hall of Fame. It’s deserved for his rejuvenation of the tarnished star on the Cowboys’ helmets and for being a point man in the NFL’s growth and sponsorship deals.

Still, Kraft’s Pats have won six Super Bowls since the Cowboys’ last championship. Jones’ election seems to have been, in part, because he wanted to be in the Hall of Fame and had become so powerful that the league and its voters decided it was easier to just elect him than deal with his tantrums. He also wanted to be enshrined before his nemesis, former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson. This, despite it being Johnson who rebuilt the team on the field.

Kraft is eventually going to be elected just as his fellow snub and former coach Belichick. But at age 84, it’s another case of the league waiting too long to enshrine a deserving candidate, in part due to the league’s arcane rules, which it seems to be quite fond of in every aspect, from on-field to off-field to recognizing the greats of the game.

The NFL Is Stubborn, but Not Tone Deaf

The NFL is becoming too reactive to criticism about its policies. That extended to the Hall of Fame. After years of enduring allegations that it was too strict, it loosened the standards. Suddenly, good players like Richard Dent, Ken Stabler, and Andre Reed, who, in the past, would have been categorized as members of the “Hall of Almost,” were in the Hall of Fame.

The rules limiting how many modern era players, coaches, contributors, and senior candidates can be enshrined in one year are causing controversies like this.

Voters are not denying Kraft. But they are delaying him. To be fair, they are saying other candidates might have been waiting longer or are more deserving than him. Perhaps it’s true.

Given the backlash, expect there to be a “revisiting” of the process, perhaps completely separating coaches and owners from players with a different voting template to prevent this from happening again.

Regardless, Kraft is the Patriots’ glue. And it needs to dry another year before he’s honored for it.

It’s strangely appropriate that the Patriots might very well win the Super Bowl immediately after Kraft was denied entry to the Hall when he laid the foundation upon which all these championships and parades in Boston were built.

He’ll get in next year. But he should be in this year.