New Hall of Fame Rules Route Eli Manning, Carl Banks and Tom Coughlin Through One 15-Name Field

The Pro Football Hall of Fame announced revised selection bylaws on Sept. 4 that put every Giants candidate for the Class of 2027 into one field. Eli Manning, Carl Banks and Tom Coughlin will be considered from a single slate of 13 players, one coach and one contributor, replacing the separate Modern-Era Player, Seniors and Coach groups the Hall used through the Class of 2026.

What changed

Josh Dubow of The Associated Press reported the new mechanic: all 15 candidates are discussed together and cut to 10, then to seven, as a single field. Selectors vote for six of the final seven. Approval still requires 80%. Dubow reported that the Hall said the change should produce classes of three to seven, with five or six by far the likeliest. ESPN's Jeff Legwold reported the same three-to-seven range and wrote that most classes will now realistically be five or six.

The previous bylaws ran two ballots. The Hall's Feb. 5 release on the Class of 2026 lays them out: 15 Modern-Era Player finalists were cut to 10 and then to seven, selectors could vote for five of those seven, and three to five were elected at 80% approval. A second pool of five was voted on separately — Seniors finalists Roger Craig, Ken Anderson and L.C. Greenwood, Coach finalist Bill Belichick and Contributor finalist Robert Kraft — and one to three of them could be elected at the same threshold. Only Craig cleared it. Those bylaws allowed a class of four to eight.

The Hall also cut its Selection Committee from 50 members to 28. Twenty-five vote in a given year and three participate without voting. Selectors are no longer assigned to individual NFL clubs; the panel becomes 27 at-large selectors plus one Pro Football Writers of America representative. One person who is not on the committee will make all initial presentations, and the annual meeting returns to an in-person format after a six-year hiatus that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What it means for Eli Manning

Manning has been a finalist twice and has not reached the final seven either time. He was among the 15 Modern-Era finalists for the Class of 2026, and the Hall's Feb. 5 release named the seven who advanced: Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Luke Kuechly, Adam Vinatieri, Willie Anderson, Terrell Suggs and Marshal Yanda. Its Feb. 6, 2025, release listed a Class of 2025 final seven that did not include him either.

The number of finalist places available to modern-era players drops from 15 to 13. The three Seniors slots were never available to him, and every player retired at least five years now competes for those 13, including candidates who previously had a separate Seniors track. Manning, one of six players with multiple Super Bowl MVP awards, will be in his third year of eligibility.

The Hall also deleted the provision that automatically returned final-seven candidates to finalist status the next year. It was never in play for Manning. Dubow reported that Willie Anderson, Suggs and Yanda lose the automatic 2027 finalist status they had earned.

Banks, Conerly and Walls lose the Seniors route

Three Giants were still alive in the Seniors process for the Class of 2026. The Hall announced on Oct. 23, 2025, that 34 Seniors remained under consideration, among them Banks, quarterback Charlie Conerly and cornerback Everson Walls, all drawn from the 162 Seniors nominees the Hall announced in September 2025. None reached the nine semifinalists the Hall named on Nov. 19, 2025. Banks played linebacker for the Giants from 1984 to 1992 and was a first-team All-Pro and Pro Bowl selection in 1987. Conerly spent all 14 of his seasons with the Giants, from 1948 to 1961, and quarterbacked the 1956 NFL championship team. Walls played three seasons for the Giants, from 1990 to 1992, after nine with Dallas. Mark Bavaro, a Seniors nominee for the Class of 2025, does not appear on the 162-name list.

Banks, Conerly and Walls all remain eligible under the new rules, inside the single player pool. The Seniors Blue-Ribbon Committee had delivered three finalists a year from players retired 25 years or more, and those three were guaranteed places on the final ballot without competing against recently retired candidates. That route no longer exists.

Coughlin's path runs through the same field

The revised bylaws keep the Coach category, and they keep the subcommittee that names one Coach candidate for election each year. Coughlin still needs that subcommittee to pick him. He was one of nine Coach semifinalists for the Class of 2026 and reached that stage in the 2025 cycle; Belichick was the Coach finalist for 2026, Mike Holmgren for 2025. The vote after that changed. A named Coach candidate is now voted on inside the 15-name field and must survive two cuts to reach the final seven, rather than in a separate five-candidate pool. Dubow reported that Seniors, Coach and Contributor finalists once received a final up-or-down vote, that most of them were elected as a result, and that the path "has now gotten more difficult." Coughlin went 182-157, including playoffs, over 20 seasons with Jacksonville and the Giants. He won two Super Bowls with the Giants.

Dubow reported the in-person meeting will be held closer to the class announcement at NFL Honors during Super Bowl week, to reduce leaks. The Hall said it will name its new slate of selectors after all 50 members who elected the Class of 2026 are notified of their status.