Robert Kraft is one of the most successful owners in NFL history. But he's still waiting to be given the league's highest honor.
The New England Patriots owner will not be included in the 2025 class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, ESPN's Don Van Natta reported Friday. Kraft was among the semifinalists under consideration in the "contributor" category for the 2025 class, but according to Van Natta, the nine-member subcommittee instead chose Ralph Hay, one of the NFL's initial co-founders who owned the Canton Bulldogs from 1918 to 1922.
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Why does Kraft continue to get passed over for the Hall of Fame despite an impressive resume that includes overseeing one of the greatest dynasties in professional sports that brought six Super Bowl titles to New England from 2001 to 2018? Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer joined Patriots Pregame Live on Sunday to offer more insight into the subcomittee's thought process.
"I think there are a couple of things at work here," Breer said, as seen in the video above. "Number one, the Spygate/Deflategate thing is part of it with the committee. There's no question about that. They feel like if he is going to be celebrated for winning the Super Bowl championships, the six of them with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, then he has to wear their warts too."
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That's a somewhat reasonable gripe, as Kraft's Patriots were involved in a pair of fairly significant scandals during their dynasty. But the rest of Breer's reporting should make the Krafts' blood boil.
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"I think the other factor is what we've all been talking about, which was the endless campaigning to get him in (to the Hall of Fame)," Breer said. "Now, my understanding is that Kraft's camp has dialed that back the last couple of years. And I think now based on the age of some of the guys in that committee, some of those guys are out of the business of football at this point -- they're sick of being told they're idiots. They're sick of being told they don't know what they're doing.
"So, what does that cause them to do? That's caused them to go the other way and show how much smarter they are than everybody else and put in Buddy Parker last year and put in Ralph Hay (this year)."
According to Breer, folks at the Hall of Fame also were upset that news of Kraft's snub was leaked to Van Natta.
"Along those lines, I don't think it helped that this got out the way that it did," Breer said. "This is another factor I think going forward now. I heard a lot of people at the Hall of Fame were pissed off that this thing was leaked and got out through Don Van Natta and that the Hall wasn't allowed to make the announcement of Ralph Hay on its own.
"So, whether or not the Kraft camp was involved in that at all, it doesn't matter. It's another thing that kind of goes up on that ledger, and it's unfortunate, because I do think Kraft was very deserving."
It's one thing for the Hall of Fame subcommittee to deny Kraft entry because they don't think he's worthy. But this seems like more of a personal vendetta that has little to do with the Patriots owner's actual accomplishments and more to do with the subcommittee trying to make a point.
That's an incredibly frustrating development for an NFL owner who clearly has a Hall of Fame resume but continues to be snubbed for reasons unrelated to what he's accomplished over the last 30 years.
