At 83, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has six Super Bowls under his belt and is waiting to hear his name inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It hasn’t been a happy wait, according to a story published Wednesday by ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr.
Over the past decade, Kraft’s team, led by Patriots public relations director Stacey James, has been lobbying to have Kraft enshrined in Canton, Ohio, to no avail. The 12-person subcommittee that determines the final vote has not even once submitted his name to the 50 selectors.
The wait has reportedly left Kraft frustrated, so much so that he had some choice words about the enshrinement from Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones:
Kraft viewed the selection of Jerry Jones as an insult, a verdict that Jones is more responsible for the NFL’s astonishing success.
“He hasn’t been to an NFC title game in two decades and he does it?” Kraft told a confidant. “How does that work?”
Kraft’s Hall of Fame candidacy has several things in its favor.
Of course, there are their six Super Bowl rings, earned over a two-decade reign as the NFL’s best team. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick understandably get more credit for that, but it’s been an incredible run for a team that nearly moved before Kraft bought it in 1994. Kraft has also long been one of the NFL’s most influential owners, helping negotiate an end to the 2011 lockout and chairing the owners’ media committee that recently negotiated $110 billion in television rights deals.
On the other hand, there are the scandals. During Kraft’s time as owner of the team, there has been the Spygate scandal, the Deflategate scandal, and his own scandal involving a certain Florida massage parlor. None of them have helped Kraft’s image, but it is apparently Spygate that has left voters most concerned:
A small group of anti-Kraft voters told ESPN that they have long harbored concerns that Kraft knew far more about Spygate than he had acknowledged. “Some voters believe he was part of the biggest cheating scandal in NFL history,” said one longtime Hall of Fame voter. “That’s a very hard thing to get over.”
Another voter said: “Kraft has distanced itself from Spygate, but the issue has come up and needs to be taken into account.”
As for Jones, there were certainly some critics of the decision to bring him in in 2016 (that was apparently when several owners, not just Kraft, started wondering why they couldn’t get to Canton, too). Since Jones bought the team in 1989, it’s won three Super Bowls, but it’s also seen Jones make some puzzling decisions. “America’s Team” hasn’t made it to the Super Bowl, or even the NFC championship game, since the 1995 season.
As one voter explained to Kraft, it was Jones’s role as a marketer that put him over the top:
In August 2017, Jason Cole, a longtime Hall of Fame voter, said he sat down for an interview with Kraft and James in Kraft’s wood-paneled office in Foxborough. A few minutes into the conversation, Kraft asked Cole, “How did Jerry Jones get into the Hall of Fame?”
“It’s PT Barnum,” Cole said he responded, echoing a sentiment he said he expressed earlier when James called asking for an explanation. “He’s the greatest salesman in the history of sports.” Cole recalled Kraft simply laughing.
Since 2000, only five owners have been enshrined: Jones, Dan Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ralph Wilson of the Buffalo Bills, Eddie DeBartolo of the San Francisco 49ers and Pat Bowlen of the Denver Broncos.
The good news for Kraft is that there has been a major voting change that will favor his case. For years, the Hall of Fame has voted on a coach/contributor class, in which owners have to compete with coaches, league executives and, in 2022, an arbitrator.
That will reportedly change this year, as coaches and assistants will be split into different categories. Kraft will therefore have less competition, but the question is whether he will be able to overcome other obstacles.