Hollywood couldn’t write a script this juicy if it came from the mind of Steven Spielberg.
Just days before the New England Patriots take on the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl LX, it was announced that owner Robert Kraft had missed the cut for the 2026 Pro Football Hall of Fame. Kraft joins former head coach Bill Belichick in missing the cut for the class of 2026.
The duo that helped lead the Patriots to six Super Bowl wins in 24 years have been denied enshrinement in 2026. Talk about bulletin board material for a group of players preparing to play the biggest game of their lives in a few days. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect for adding a bit of drama to this Super Bowl.
A little extra motivation for the New England Patriots
Even if it isn’t admitted publicly, there’s no way head coach Mike Vrabel doesn’t use this as a way to motivate his players even more than they already are. It has to also mean something to Vrabel as a former Patriots player watching Kraft and Belichick get snubbed in real time. Everyone aside from the voters who didn’t vote for Belichick or Kraft knows this is a travesty. If anyone ever deserved to automatically be inducted into the Hall of Fame, it’s the two gentlemen who constructed a dynasty that lasted two decades and brought home six Lombardi trophies.
Kraft bought the team in 1994 and by 1996 the Patriots were in the Super Bowl led by Hall of Fame head coach Bill Parcells and quarterback Drew Bledsoe. They would lose Super Bowl XXXI to the Green Bay Packers that year but this was just beginning for what was to come under Kraft’s ownership.
A dominating force
Belichick arrived in 2000 and over the next few years (2001-2004) New England would win three out of four Super Bowl titles. Vrabel was in the building and one of the leaders of the Patriots’ defense as Belichick earned the reputation as the best defensive mind in football. The defense is what carried a large part of the load for that early part of New England’s dynasty and that was on the back of Belichick’s scheme.
From 2007 forward, it became more even between the offense and defense as the Patriots would eventually morph into the Tom Brady show in large part. Even as Brady began to pass the ball more and more, winning three MVP awards between 2007 and 2017, Belichick’s hands remained all over the defense. New England doesn’t win Super Bowl XLIX against Seattle if it isn’t for an interception at the goal line with seconds left in the game by Malcolm Butler.
With all that history under Kraft’s watch and the success this franchise has had since he took over in ’94, it’s hard to understand how he isn’t a no-brainer for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. If that snub is what it takes for the Patriots to bring Lombardi No. 7 back to New England, surely they’ll use that to their full advantage on Super Bowl Sunday.