What is the Pro Football Hall of Fame?

Here, we explain the origins and rules of the time-honoured tradition, and what it means to earn a place among the enshrined.

We also touch on last night's Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, which delivered two standout performances from rookie quarterbacks and marked our first taste of football in the new season.

What the Hall of Fame actually is

Jason Miller / Stringer

Canton, Ohio, may not seem like the obvious home for the NFL's most sacred building until you remember the league itself started there as the American Professional Football Association.

The sport's earliest repeat champion, the now-defunct Canton Bulldogs, hailed from the city, which also was the home of former United States President William McKinley.

It's a museum first, opened in 1963, built specifically to preserve names and moments revered in NFL history that would otherwise fade from memory.

More than 10 million visitors have walked through the doors since, arriving from every state and more than 70 countries.

In 2017, it became the first major sports museum in the country to earn accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums, a distinction fewer than 3% of America's museums ever get.

How players get into the Hall of Fame

Players and coaches must be retired from the game for at least 5 years before they can be considered.

From there, a committee works through the list, and the bar sits high enough that six-time Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Belichick was a finalist this year and still didn't make it.

What gets someone through isn't just the stat sheet; voters want sustained dominance, leadership that showed off the field too, a real fingerprint on whatever team they played for.

MVPs, All-Pro nods, rings, that stuff all counts, but plenty of Hall of Famers get in on reputation built over a decade rather than one gaudy season.

The numbers behind the building

382 people currently have busts in Canton, and that number will climb to 387 once this year's class is enshrined.

Emilee Chinn

The Chicago Bears have sent more players through those doors than anyone, 39 and counting, while the Jacksonville Jaguars have exactly one representative to their name.

Meet the Class of 2026

Five names go in this August: Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Roger Craig, Luke Kuechly, and Adam Vinatieri.

Brees didn't need a second ballot; he retired second all-time in passing yards and touchdowns behind only Tom Brady, with a Super Bowl XLIV MVP attached to his name.

Fitzgerald spent every one of his 17 seasons in Arizona, and only Jerry Rice ranks ahead of him in both receiving yards and catches.

Kuechly's resume is shorter by design, eight seasons with Carolina before he walked away at 28, but his career is still stacked with All-Pro honours.

Vinatieri won three rings, and remains the only kicker in Super Bowl history to make multiple go-ahead field goals with under ten seconds left on the clock.

Craig gets in as the senior selection, a 49ers workhorse whose case many voters felt was long overdue.

The Hall of Fame Game

Enshrinement weekend always comes with a preseason game attached, and this year's matchup was as exciting as any in recent memory.

Held at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in the Hall of Fame Village as it is every year, the Panthers ran out 33-30 winners over the Cardinals.

The Class of 2026 watched on as rookie quarterbacks Carson Beck and Haynes King slugged it out in a game that went down to the wire.

This game and the three weekends packed with preseason fixtures that follow will be available to watch FREE and LIVE on DAZN.

On Saturday, August 8, the enshrinement takes place, when all five men receive their jackets and take photos alongside their busts.