SAN FRANCISCO — It’s official: the winningest Super Bowl head coach ever and one of the NFL’s most influential and impactful team owners in league history are not first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Famers.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft and former head coach Bill Belichick were both denied as the 2026 induction class for the football shrine was revealed at the NFL Honors ceremony late Thursday at the Palace of Fine Arts. Instead, the latest inductees will include Drew Brees, Roger Craig, Larry Fitzgerald Jr., Luke Kuechly, and Adam Vinatieri.
While each has made laudatory contributions to football and, in many instances, ranks among the most prolific performers in NFL history, none of them have captured the attention that the candidacies of Kraft and Belichick have. And in a certain irony, it was Vinatieri, a standout kicker who was part of three Super Bowl winners in New England, who gained entry to the Hall of Fame before his coach and owner there.
The situation around Belichick and Kraft has dominated conversation in and around the festivities leading up to Super Bowl LX on Sunday. Belichick was famously cantankerous with the media and was involved in several scandals, and Kraft led the team while issues such as Spygate and Deflategate unfolded. The failure to recognize the accomplishments of both, however, has sparked widespread outcry.
Belichick’s six Super Bowl wins as a head coach are unmatched, and his 302 victories in the regular season rank third in NFL history behind Don Shula and George Halas. Kraft, meanwhile, has been a central figure in the NFL’s ascent into a global business colossus that has included still-rising revenue and franchise values, and quite possibly, another U.S. television viewership record on Sunday.
Patriots Cry Foul
Leading up to Thursday night’s reveal of the induction class, significant sentiment existed among former Patriots colleagues, and elsewhere in football, that both Belichick and Kraft were unjustly treated.
“Coach Belichick needs to be in the Hall of Fame, and it needed to be a first ballot,” former Patriots tight end and Fox Sports personality Rob Gronkowski told Front Office Sports on Radio Row at Super Bowl LX. “Now there’s no such thing as a first ballot Hall of Fame coach. No other coach ever in history should go first ballot.”
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, preparing for the title game Sunday against the Seahawks, concurred.
“In my experiences with Robert, he’s more than deserving of being in the Hall of Fame,” Vrabel said. “I’m not in charge of deciding when that happens.”
Changes Likely Coming
After the induction class was announced, Pro Football Hall of Fame president and CEO Jim Porter acknowledged the furor surrounding Belichick and Kraft and said several changes are potentially on the table to improve voting procedures. Among them are a public release of vote totals, changes to how candidates are classified, and a return to full in-person voting and debate—something shelved during the pandemic.
“We’re going to take a look at everything,” Porter said. “I’ve had selectors say it’s not apples-to-apples [between a contributor, player, or a coach]. … A quarterback and a guard probably aren’t apples-to-apples either. What we ask the selectors to do is pick the people most deserving that are in front of them. It’s hard.”
Porter said on-field matters are what selectors are tasked to consider, and as a result, issues such as the Patriots’ Spygate scandal could be part of that evaluation.
Other Winners
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, meanwhile, won the NFL Most Valuable Player award, beating out the Patriots’ Drake Maye in a high-profile battle. The 37-year-old Stafford, winning by just five points over Maye in the weighted voting, used the occasion to announce that he will be returning for the 2026 season.
Vrabel won Coach of the Year, leading New England to a massive turnaround in his first year that includes a trip to Sunday’s Super Bowl LX. Browns defensive end Myles Garrett unanimously won Defensive Player of the Year after setting a new single-season sack record. The 49ers’ Christian McCaffrey won Comeback Player of the Year, and is the first running back to gain that honor in 24 years..
The league continues to expand its annual Honors ceremony, with the primetime ceremony shown on NBC and Peacock and hosted by Jon Hamm. The actor was not afraid to skewer key league figures in his opening monologue.
“Incredible performance by Jerry Jones on Landman, way more convincing than when he said it was a good idea to trade Micah Parsons,” he joked about the Cowboys owner.
Hamm also addressed the league’s ever-expanding global profile.
“There’s nowhere this game can’t thrive—except the NFC South.” he said.
