Robert Kraft takes great pride in the fact that long before he was the billionaire owner of the Patriots -- one of the most successful, respected owners in all of sports -- he was one of the team’s season ticket holders.
He remembers well (fondly?) the metal benches of Foxboro/Sullivan/Schaefer Stadium.
Which means he also remembers well, albeit not fondly, the losing that so often took place at Gillette Stadium’s predecessor before he took over the team. Heck, maybe he even donned a paper bag over his head for a game or two back in the day.
But he certainly never wants to return to those bad ol’ days. Kraft made that quite clear this week in a half-hour conference call with the local New England media in which he bounced between seemingly realistic understanding of the seven-win, playoff-free 2020 season in the first year without Tom Brady under center, while also issuing authoritative directives that losing is by no means any longer an accepted way of life in New England.
Bill Belichick helped Kraft set a crazy-high, dynastic bar over the last two decades and now the owner expects his top football employee to maintain that level. Even if there wasn’t necessarily a spoken “or else” at the end of any of Kraft’s responses to reporters.
Make no mistake though, Kraft declared with honest passion, “I expect to be a contender every year. That’s my objective. Last year was very disappointing.”
Indeed it was. For all involved. Whether you sit on a thrown of ownership or in a man cave surrounded by memorabilia of the greatest run of success in NFL history.
But the disappointing season wasn’t merely a result of Brady jumping ship to the Buccaneers.
Even while still collecting another Lombardi Trophy, the Patriots were trending in the wrong direction, in part due to suspect or even dismal draft classes under Belichick’s direction.
We all saw it, and now the patriarch of Patriot Nation has acknowledged it publicly.
“I don’t feel like we’ve done the greatest job the last few years and I really hope and believe I’ve seen a different approach this year,” Kraft said of the draft process.
The core fan inside him taking over at times, Kraft even accurately noted that things may not have been much better this past fall even if Brady had stuck around. “Look what happened at the end of his last season here,” Kraft said, alluding to the home stretch of the 2019 season in which Brady’s Patriots lost three of five games to close out the regular season and then were bumped from the playoffs by the Titans on Wild Card Weekend.
That jumpstarted the worst calendar year of Kraft’s tenure as owner, the most dismal year in decades for the Foxborough Faithful.
“It was horrible,” Kraft said of 2020. “After my family, the Patriots are the most important thing in my life and I think what we can do to impact the community, but also the privilege I have of owning this team in my hometown. It’s like I said when I bought the team – our family is the custodian of a public asset. The bottom line here is winning.
“The bottom line is we want to win and when we don’t, we’re not happy.”
Bad drafts and Brady’s departure created a hole, one that Kraft and Belichick are trying to buy their way out of this offseason via free agency. Hundreds of millions of dollars dispersed to a handful of good if not great players on both sides of the ball, guys in the prime of their careers with plenty of potential. It’s unlike anything the Patriots have done in the past, of course they never really had to back in the Brady-led days of yearly trips to AFC title game or beyond.
Kraft signed off the on the plan and the checks it took, both literally and figuratively. But it’s his football employees that directed it and executed it. They will be held accountable for its results. They will reap the benefits or pay for its shortcomings in the end.
“I think we collectively made a decision that this is a unique time and now we’ll see how good our people were in evaluating talent and the chemistry,” Kraft said. “No matter how much talent you have, if you don’t have good chemistry, this is a business that depends on at least 30-40 different players. One guy on special teams can screw up and something really bad happens that hurts the whole team. So, we’ll see and we’ll be able to evaluate.”
Yes, yes we will.
As will Kraft, clearly. He certainly still has plenty of faith in Belichick, built over decades of successful decisions and roster building. As he should. But of late Kraft, like portions of his massive fan base, has been given reason to at least question Belichick’s moves and their results.
It’s why after a year that left him feeling “horrible,” Kraft was willingly forced to invest in a Patriots rebuild like the football world has never seen.
“Bill and I are able to work this out in a way that we think is best for the franchise and it’s pretty much been that way. He’s been with us for 21 years. He’s maybe the best ever to do it,” Kraft said. “I don’t think stability and continuity in coaches in the modern era has been stable. I’m pretty happy with our working relationship and I think anyone who knows, knows we invested what we had to, to put us in the best position to win. That hasn’t been the style we’ve used, but conditions have changed and we were in a unique space and I hope and pray it works the way our plan was.”
Because at his core, Kraft is still very much a fan.
And he made it quite clear this week – for everyone to hear, both inside Gillette Stadium’s football offices and out -- that he’s not a fan of losing.
