Bengals Ring of Honor members Ken Anderson and Willie Anderson reached the doorstep of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Thursday night, but were denied when the 2026 class was announced during NFL Honors in San Francisco.

Ken Anderson, a four-time NFL passing champion and a senior nominee, along with Willie Anderson, the AFC’s highest-rated right tackle ever and a modern-era candidate, appeared to lose extremely tight elections in their respective categories.

Stricter voting rules resulted in the second straight class with fewer than six inductees for the smallest back-to-back classes since 2004 and 2005.

One senior player, 49ers running back Roger Craig, emerged from a ballot of five that included Ken Anderson and another senior, late Steelers defensive linemen L.C. Greenwood, as well as coaching candidate Bill Belichick and contributor candidate Robert Kraft.

Four modern players from a slate of 15 got the nod. First-time eligibles Drew Brees, the most accurate quarterback of the previous decade, and Larry Fitzgerald, an 11-time Pro Bowl wide receiver who had more than 1,400 catches across the first three decades of this century, got the required 80% of the vote from the 50-member selection committee. So did clutch postseason kicker Adam Vinatieri and Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly, a Cincinnati native, both in their second year of eligibility.

For the second straight year, Willie Anderson came achingly close. Although the Hall doesn’t release vote totals, it divulged that Anderson finished in the top seven, meaning he’ll automatically advance to the final 15 for a sixth straight year in 2027.

In the two elections since the Hall changed its voting process, Willie Anderson has finished in the top seven. Before the change, if a modern-era player reached the final five, he was voted on separately and had to gain 80% yeahs for induction. More often than not, the final five made it.

Now, the final seven are pitted against each other, and voters must choose five, which has amounted to smaller classes in the last two years.

But the elections of Vinatieri and Kuechly bode well for Willie Anderson in 2027. Both were in the top seven last year. So was Greatest Show on Turf wide receiver Torry Holt, but he didn’t return to the top seven. Second-year eligibles from the Ravens, pass rusher Terrell Suggs and guard Marshal Yanda did.

In his 13th year of eligibility, that made Willie Anderson the only one of the top seven modern-era candidates who wasn’t in his first or second year of eligibility.