New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has not been selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Tuesday morning.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft, like his former head coach Bill Belichick, was not selected for entry into this year’s Pro Football Hall of Fame class, sources told ESPN.
The Class of 2026 will be revealed Thursday at NFL Honors in San Francisco, but it will not include Kraft. pic.twitter.com/W0YBwnxsq8
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 3, 2026
The Class of 2026 will be revealed Thursday at the NFL Honors in San Francisco.
The news comes a week after it was made public that former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick had not been selected for the Hall of Fame on his first ballot, a move that prompted criticism from many corners given that he is widely regarded as the greatest coach in NFL history.
Citing sources, ESPN said that Spygate and Deflategate, two cheating scandals that emerged during Belichick’s New England tenure, came up in deliberations among voters. It’s unclear if those incidents were the exact reasoning for his omission.
The ex-New England Patriots head coach fell short of the 40 out of 50 votes needed for induction, according to a report.
Schefter said in his report that this is the first year that Kraft advanced to become a finalist in the contributor category. No reasoning has been given yet for his ommission.
Kraft bought the Patriots in 1994 with the team’s 10 Super Bowl appearances since then the most for any owner in NFL history. The team went to the Super Bowl in his third season under Bill Parcells and then nine more times with Belichick as coach.
Kraft has also been a member on several NFL ownership committees and played a key role in resolving the 2011 lockout.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.