The Hall of Fame will snub yet another New England Patriot. After news leaked last week that Bill Belichick won’t make the Hall this year, team owner Robert Kraft also did not get the votes needed for enshrinement, per multiple reports.
The only consolation for Belichick and Kraft is that, maybe, it’s not personal. Maybe one wasn’t plotting to overtake the other. Maybe it’s just a matter of a broken system.
Because it made no sense to exclude Belichick, the greatest NFL coach of all time. But given what we know about the high threshold of votes and the lower total of votes (which changed last year), it seemed that maybe Belichick’s absence would mean that Kraft would get his Hall of Fame moment.
Nope.
Kraft’s case only seems to get better, with the owner now stewarding the franchise into a third different era of Super Bowl success. Kraft employed (but did not hire) coach Bill Parcells, who brought the organization back from sheer irrelevance. Parcells got the team to its first Super Bowl. After a spat with Parcells, Kraft then hired Belichick, who won New England its first Super Bowl — and its sixth.
And now, Kraft has Mike Vrabel running the show. In his first year as head coach, Vrabel has the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
I don’t know — with absolute certainty — that owners should or should not be on the Hall of Fame ballot. But I know they’re on the ballot. And because that’s the case (and such owners as Jerry Jones and Pat Bowlen have already made it), we can’t put away the contents of Pandora’s box.
When comparing his legacy to those of other owners, Kraft is absolutely among the best.
I understand that there’s a crowd out there that rolls their eyes at owners’ contributions, but that overlooks the all-important name on the check. And it’s not the person writing the check, it’s the person receiving that check. The owners may not pick the players, but they pick the person running football operations, whether that’s a general manager or a head coach.
In the case of Kraft, he very clearly picked Belichick and Vrabel. He has a heavy hand in the hiring process at the top, and then he excuses himself from the rest. That’s a sign of good leadership — knowing where to contribute and where to delegate.
Just look at what has happened this offseason. NFL owners fired 10 head coaches and four general managers. The turnover is huge. Kraft participated in that tumult after the 2024 season when he fired Jerod Mayo after one season. Kraft also fired Pete Caroll, who turned out to be a Super Bowl-winning coach — just not with the Patriots.
Kraft has had to make only a few key decisions in his tenure. And, man, he’s mostly nailed them.
Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel holds up the Lamar Hunt Trophy after New England beat the Broncos in the AFC Championship Game. (Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Owners have real influence in stabilizing or destabilizing an organization. There are teams that have chronic problems with hiring organizational leaders. Why do you think that is? There are teams that never seem to have a complete roster — a sheer lack of talent that stems from a sheer lack of spending. Who do you think isn’t writing those checks? There are Hall of Fame quarterbacks who can’t seem to make the Super Bowl — let alone win it — because of their ineffective supporting cast. Is that solely the quarterback’s fault?
When a team sustains success for as long as the Patriots have, despite turnover at general manager and head coach and quarterback, there’s a reason for it. There’s one constant.
For the Patriots, that’s Kraft.
So, if we’re putting owners into the Hall — and we are — Kraft deserves to be one of them.
When the voters sit down later in 2026 to discuss who deserves to wear a gold jacket, they need to figure out why their most deserving candidates didn’t get the right number of votes this year. And they need to redesign a voting system that celebrates the people who are inarguably among the league’s most accomplished.
Because, simply, that’s what the Hall of Fame is about.
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