Breer details what motivated Robert Kraft’s latest Hall of Fame offense appeared originally on NBC Sports Boston
Robert Kraft is one of the most successful owners in NFL history. However, he is still waiting to be awarded the highest award in the league.
The New England Patriots owner will not be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s 2025 class, ESPN’s Don Van Natta reported Friday. Kraft was among the semifinalists considered in the “contributor” category for the class of 2025, but according to Van Natt, the nine-member subcommittee instead selected Ralph Hay, one of the NFL’s early co-founders, who owned the Canton Bulldogs from 1918 to 1922.
Why does Kraft continue to make it to the Hall of Fame despite an impressive resume that includes overseeing one of the greatest dynasties in professional sports, bringing New England six Super Bowl titles from 2001 to 2018? Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer joins Patriots pregame live on Sunday to offer more insight into the subcommittee’s thought process.
“I think there’s a couple of things at work here,” Breer said, as seen in the video above. “First of all, the Spygate/Deflategate thing is part of the committee. There’s no question about that. They feel like they’re going to celebrate him for winning a Super Bowl championship, six of them with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.” , then he must also bear their warts.’
That’s a somewhat reasonable gripe, as Kraft’s Patriots have been embroiled in two fairly high-profile scandals during their dynasty. But the rest of Breer’s news should make Kraft’s blood boil.
“I think the other factor is what we’ve all talked about, which has been the endless campaign to get him (into the Hall of Fame),” Breer said. “Now, my understanding is that Kraft’s camp has dialed it back over the last couple of years. And now I think based on the age of some of the guys on this committee, some of them are out of football at this point.” — They are sick of being idiots. They are sick of not knowing what they are doing.
“So what did that cause them to do? That 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 (this year) Ralph Haye.”
According to Breer, people at the Hall of Fame were also upset that news of Kraft’s offense escaped Van Natta.
“In that sense, I don’t think it helped that it came out the way it did,” Breer said. “That’s another factor that I think now going forward. I heard that a lot of people in the Hall of Fame were upset that this thing was leaked and got out through Don Van Natta and that the Hall wasn’t allowed to announce Ralph Hay himself about myself.
“So whether the Kraft camp was involved at all or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s another thing that shows up in that ledger, and it’s unfortunate because I think Kraft deserved it very much.”
It’s one thing for a Hall of Fame subcommittee to deny Kraft entry because they don’t think he deserves it. But it appears to be more of a personal vendetta that has little to do with the actual accomplishments of the Patriots owner 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 is still under pressure for reasons unrelated to what he’s accomplished over the past 30 years.