Bengals Ring of Honor members Ken Anderson and Willie Anderson reached the doorstep of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Thursday night, but were denied when the 2026 class was announced during NFL Honors in San Francisco.

Ken Anderson, a four-time NFL passing champion and a senior nominee, along with Willie Anderson, the AFC's highest-rated right tackle ever and a modern-era candidate, appeared to lose extremely tight elections in their respective categories.

Stricter voting rules resulted in the second straight class with fewer than six inductees for the smallest back-to-back classes since 2004 and 2005.

One senior player, 49ers running back Roger Craig, emerged from a ballot of five that included Ken Anderson and another senior, late Steelers defensive linemen L.C. Greenwood, as well as coaching candidate Bill Belichick and contributor candidate Robert Kraft.

Four modern players from a slate of 15 got the nod. First-time eligibles Drew Brees, the most accurate quarterback of the previous decade, and Larry Fitzgerald, an 11-time Pro Bowl wide receiver who had more than 1,400 catches across the first three decades of this century, got the required 80% of the vote from the 50-member selection committee. So did clutch postseason kicker Adam Vinatieri and Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly, a Cincinnati native, both in their second year of eligibility.

For the second straight year, Willie Anderson came achingly close. Although the Hall doesn't release vote totals, it divulged that Anderson finished in the top seven, meaning he'll automatically advance to the final 15 for a sixth straight year in 2027.

In the two elections since the Hall changed its voting process, Willie Anderson has finished in the top seven. Before the change, if a modern-era player reached the final five, he was voted on separately and had to gain 80% yeahs for induction. More often than not, the final five made it.

Now, the final seven are pitted against each other, and voters must choose five, which has amounted to smaller classes in the last two years.

But the elections of Vinatieri and Kuechly bode well for Willie Anderson in 2027. Both were in the top seven last year. So was Greatest Show on Turf wide receiver Torry Holt, but he didn't return to the top seven. Second-year eligibles from the Ravens, pass rusher Terrell Suggs and guard Marshal Yanda did.

In his 13th year of eligibility, that made Willie Anderson the only one of the top seven modern-era candidates who wasn't in his first or second year of eligibility.

While Willie Anderson gets another finals shot, history says Ken Anderson, who turns 77 next week, may be running out of chances. Seniors who reach the finals rarely get back into the mix because of what voters have referred to as "The Senior Abyss," a gaping chasm backlogged with qualified seniors who have waited more than 25 years since they stopped playing.

This was Ken Anderson's first shot at the finals as a senior and his first trip to the finals since he was a modern-era candidate in 1998. Regarded by many as the best quarterback not in the Hall of Fame (the only player with four NFL passing crowns not in the Hall), Anderson came out of the senior committee this year against arguably the toughest circumstances ever faced by the seniors.

Not only was he facing fellow seniors Craig and Greenwood, Ken Anderson was also competing against the architects of the Patriots dynasty of the early 21st century in their coach, Belichick, and owner, Kraft.

The seniors were lumped in with the coach and contributors categories beginning last year. The only way the maximum of three can go is if they get 80% of the votes.

But for the second year in a row, the combined categories yielded another packed race that produced one inductee out of the five. This year it was Craig. Last year, it was Packers wide receiver Sterling Sharpe.

Before 2025, each senior, coach, and contributor was voted on separately with each candidate needing 80% of the yeahs, and rarely were they rejected. It's how Ken Anderson's 1981 Super Bowl teammate, cornerback Ken Riley, made the Hall out of the senior committee in 2023 as only the second Bengal elected.

Despite Thursday night's announcement, the Andersons remain candidates who appear to have broad support in and out of the committee. Pro football historian Ryan Michael, a Hall of Fame consultant, is one of their more vocal supporters.

"Kenny and Willie Anderson's on-field resumes speak for themselves," Michael says. "For Kenny, at the time of his retirement in 1987, he was the highest rated passer in the history of the AFC and the highest rated passer in post-merger playoff history.

"For Willie, per Pro Football Reference's Approximate Value metric, the most dominant right tackle in the history of the AFC and third all-time at the position behind only Hall of Famers Ron Yary and Jackie Slater … The momentum in support of their legacies has been deafening."