Hall of Fame predictions: Who will make the next 10 classes?

Predicting what will happen in the NFL over the next 12 months is impossibly difficult. You have to account for every single bit of player movement, foresee injuries that will alter the season in a moment and adjust for everything from weather that’s too hot to conditions that are icy cold. And then, after all that, the Chiefs just end up winning the Super Bowl anyway.

Naturally, I want to raise the difficulty even higher. The good news for me is I’m going to be predicting upcoming Pro Football Hall of Fame classes, so many of the players have already finished their careers and finalized their credentials. The bad news is I’ve chosen to predict the next 10 Hall of Fame classes, so if you thought figuring out what’s going to happen in 2025 is tough, imagine how hard it’ll be to prognosticate the goings-on in 2034, a decade down the line.

I’m going to try my best. Since active players and coaches become eligible five years after retiring, the classes toward the tail end of this exercise will be full of players currently in the NFL. As a result, I’ve had to do some guesswork as to when veteran players will retire and what their résumés will look like when they do call it quits. Players I project to be playing through the 2030 season, including Patrick Mahomes and Micah Parsons, won’t appear in this piece.

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I’ll be considering players who are already retired and eligible for the Hall and coaches who have recently been active, but I won’t be focusing on senior candidates from the past. I’ll mention candidates as they become eligible each year and then again if I project them to make it to Canton, as needed. And finally, just to be clear: These aren’t my suggestions for who should make the Hall of Fame; these are my predictions for who will make the Hall of Fame if the voters act as they have in previous years.

Let’s start in 2025 and work our way to 2034.

Jump to a projected HOF class:
2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029
2030 | 2031 | 2032 | 2033 | 2034

Class of 2025

New Hall of Famers

QB Eli Manning (first year of eligibility). Let’s start with a notable example of the difference between a player I think should not be in the Hall of Fame and one who will likely end up enshrined in Canton. Manning was a good quarterback who never once engendered serious consideration as an MVP candidate or as the best quarterback in football. His only award vote was a sixth-place finish in the Comeback Player of the Year award in 2011. He led the league in interceptions three times. He was healthy for nearly his entire career and made four Pro Bowls; if he’s a left guard, that’s the sort of résumé that gets a player “Where are they now?” videos on the team website, not Hall of Fame consideration.

Of course, Manning wasn’t a left guard but instead a quarterback who beat Tom Brady in two Super Bowls. History tells us the electorate values Super Bowl wins, and the only eligible quarterback with two Super Bowl victories who isn’t in the Hall is Jim Plunkett. Manning is probably close in historical impact to someone like Bob Griese, who didn’t last as long as a pro but earned more MVP consideration in multiple seasons. It took Griese a decade, but he made it into the Hall. Without many other Giants from those teams who will earn serious consideration and with a relatively weak class in 2025, Manning should be in.