MNF figures, Patriots’ Kraft up as HOF nominees

Six-time Super Bowl-winning owner Robert Kraft and three of the key figures around the rise of “Monday Night Football” were picked among the 25 candidates in the contributor category for the 2025 Pro Football Hall of Fame class.

The names of the candidates released Wednesday came after a blue-ribbon committee cut the list down from 47 people. It will be reduced to nine candidates in about two weeks, and eventually there will be one finalist who will be grouped with one coaching candidate and three senior candidates for consideration by the full selection committee for the Hall early next year.

Between one and three of those five finalists will make it to the Hall based on getting at least 80% of the votes from the full committee.

Kraft bought the New England Patriots in 1994 and quickly turned them into one of the most successful franchises in the NFL. He hired Bill Belichick as coach in 2000 and oversaw the franchise winning six Super Bowl titles from the 2001 to 2018 seasons.

Three key people behind the success of “Monday Night Football” also made the cut, including Roone Arledge, the ABC executive who produced the games that helped broaden the NFL’s popularity in the 1970s, and announcer Howard Cosell.

Former Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell, who was the chairman of the NFL’s television committee, was also instrumental in bringing the NFL into prime time. Modell was one of the league’s most influential owners, but he drew ire from fans in Cleveland after he moved his team to Baltimore in 1996.

There were two other candidates linked to television on the list: longtime ESPN announcer Chris Berman, who was the anchor of the network’s influential pregame show and popular highlight show “NFL Primetime,” and John Facenda, who narrated many of the most memorable films and highlight packages during a two-decade run at NFL Films.

Several other people involved in ownership also made the cut, including Ralph Hay, who owned the Canton Bulldogs from 1918 to 1922 and hosted the meeting that led to the birth of the NFL. Other owners are Bud Adams, who founded the Houston Oilers and later moved the franchise to Tennessee; Chicago Bears owner Virginia McCaskey; and Art Rooney Jr., who is part of the family that owns the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Among the other candidates are John Wooten, a longtime scout and executive who later became chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance that helped push the NFL to hire more minority head coaches.

Former Grambling State coach Eddie Robinson, who sent dozens of Black stars into the NFL before many colleges started recruiting Black players, also made the list, along with one of his former players, Doug Williams. Williams was the first Black starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl with Washington in the 1987 season and later worked in the team’s front office.

Former Rams scout Eddie Kotal, who was one of the first to scout Black colleges, made the list.

The other candidates are former referees Jerry Seeman and Jim Tunney; former Philadelphia Eagles trainer Otho Davis; former Raiders CEO Amy Trask, who was the first woman to hold that job; Mike Giddings, the creator of the talent evaluation company Proscout; longtime executives Frank “Bucko” Kilroy, Don Klosterman, Rick McKay and John McVay; Seymour Siwoff, the former owner and president of the Elias Sports Bureau; and former sportswriter and Green Bay Packers public relations director Lee Remmel.