Cowherd: Be bothered, Jerry Jones is in the Hall of Fame and Robert Kraft is not

If you thought the Pro Football Hall of Fame voting committee’s decision not to elect Bill Belichick for induction this year was egregious, Colin Cowherd thinks you should be just as outraged that Robert Kraft was also snubbed from the honor. Cowherd strongly defended Kraft’s Hall of Fame credentials on Tuesday’s “The Herd” after news broke that the New England Patriots owner would not be inducted into the Class of 2026. In fact, he made a bold prediction about the Patriots and took a shot at Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in explaining why Kraft should be a Hall of Famer. “If you were to ask me today what the next NFL dynasty will be, if I were to put my 401K on it, I’d bet on Drake Maye, Mike Vrabel, Robert Kraft and Josh McDaniels. It was a terrible organization before Kraft. They were the New Orleans ‘Aints – the Saints. They were terrible. They were cheap. Nobody wanted to play for them. Nobody wanted to draft them. They won 10 games all year next. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I don’t think it’s luck So if you want to be outraged that Belichick didn’t get in, you might want to be a little bothered that Jerry Jones is in, and that Robert Kraft, who has been eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame for over a decade, was denied the chance to make his bust in Canton this summer despite more Super Bowl wins. (six) than any owner in NFL history The Patriots have also appeared in 11 Super Bowls since Kraft purchased the team in 1994, with all of those appearances coming after the Cowboys’ most recent Super Bowl victory in the 1995 season. Although Jones won half of the Super Bowls as Kraft, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017. Beyond. From the direct comparison to Jones, Cowherd believes the Patriots’ sudden rise as one of the NFL’s premier franchises is a testament to Kraft and his Hall of Fame value “‘Colin, come on. Owners don’t matter!’ Oh really? Titans, Jets, Browns – perpetually dangerous. Dan Snyder took over a Washington Football team that had a 30-year waiting list for his season ticket. For twenty-four years, Washington was a disaster. The NFL is kicking him out. The following year, Washington competed in the NFC Championship. I bet it’s just a crazy coincidence,” Cowherd said. “New England was horrible before Robert Kraft came along. Five straight years of losing seasons. In fact, during that half-decade, they had the worst record in the league. Robert Kraft buys them. The following year, they were 10-6. What are the chances? Before Belichick, with Belichick, after Belichick — [Kraft has made the] Super Bowl. “There is a direct correlation between the quality of ownership and the quality of management of the decisions that are made with people. Robert Kraft, 11 Super Bowls since he bought the team. That’s more than the rest of the AFC East, AFC North and AFC South combined.” Cowherd also made a cross-sport reference to show the importance of owners. “Go watch baseball. The Yankees have as much annual revenue as the Dodgers, but the Dodgers have a better owner,” Cowherd said. “Excellence in every company I’ve worked for starts at the top and is continually reinforced every day, from the top down. It doesn’t start at the bottom. Look at New York. George Steinbrenner owned the Yankees for 37 years and won seven World Series titles. He wasn’t managers. He had 23 different managers, if you count hiring Billy Martin several times. He had multiple general managers. He had multiple players on rosters. The only commonality in the team was George Steinbrenner. Kraft didn’t experience as much turnover in key roles during his Patriots ownership, with Tom Brady and Belichick serving as the team’s quarterback-coach combo for nearly 20 years. But Kraft has now reached the Super Bowl with three distinct quarterback-coach combos. Drew Bledsoe and Bill Parcells helped New England reach the Super Bowl in 1996, while Maye and Vrabel took the Patriots back to the Super Bowl in the first year of their partnership. Kraft, however, has remained the one constant in New England over his impressive three decades, and Cowherd thinks the Patriots owner should be honored for that. “To be a dynasty, sometimes you can get lucky and win a Super Bowl and everything goes well and you have a good roster,” Cowherd said. “But to be a dynasty, you need a great owner, a great general manager, a great coach and a great quarterback. You need at least an A- in all of them.”