As owner of the NFL’s most successful franchise, Robert Kraft keeps a fairly high profile. Recently, that’s included a fractured relationship with commissioner Roger Goodell in the wake of Deflategate, as well as a long-time friendship with Donald Trump that now means something much different than it did just a few years ago.
Kraft spoke about both of those relationships in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Daily News. Here’s a section on when exactly the Goodell friendship broke down:
Kraft was livid Goodell fined the Patriots $1 million and took away a first-round draft pick in Deflategate – the most contrived controversy in NFL history – but he was apoplectic that Goodell suspended Tom Brady, whom Kraft truly loves and considers his fifth son, for four games and dirtied the reputation and integrity of the player considered the greatest quarterback in NFL history.
“We’ve developed a very close relationship,” Kraft said of his quarterback. “We truly are like family.”
[…]
“I don’t know if it will ever be the same, but in order to do what is best for the Patriots franchise long term, I believe it is best to compartmentalize and move on,” he said. “Like our quarterback, I am trying to remain positive and look to the future rather than dwell on the past. As a native New Englander, that’s easier said than done, but I am doing my best to put the matter behind me.”
One could easily point out that indeed it wasn’t Goodell’s decision to suspend Tom Brady that sullied Brady’s reputation, but Brady’s own actions. (One could also note that Kraft’s Patriots have a history of skirting competitive rules, a subject that doesn’t come up in the interview.)
Still, an owner not getting along with a commissioner isn’t exactly anything new, although it does call into question just how firm a footing Goodell is on going forward. (Though it stands to reason that the other 31 owners probably weren’t as upset about New England’s punishment as was Kraft.)
The money section is the Trump friendship, though:
So, how does Kraft reconcile his own politics — in addition to living in his home state, which is staunchly Democrat — and his friendship with Trump?
In fact, if the Cowboys are indeed America’s Team, then the Patriots are now Trump’s Team, even without the approval of Pats fans. The former owner of the New Jersey Generals has all but taken out billboards in New England bragging about how close he is to the Patriots’ Big Three.
Kraft’s loyalty to Trump goes back to when his wife Myra died from cancer in 2011, shortly after the labor deal was done.
“When Myra died, Melania and Donald came up to the funeral in our synagogue, then they came for memorial week to visit with me,” Kraft said. “Then he called me once a week for the whole year, the most depressing year of my life when I was down and out. He called me every week to see how I was doing, invited me to things, tried to lift my spirits. He was one of five or six people that were like that. I remember that.”
That initial point, about Kraft’s blue state-leaning fanbase perhaps struggling with the idea of being Trump’s Team, is an interesting one. (More fully explored at SB Nation.) Still, the main takeaway is that Kraft is a very well-connected, powerful person, and there’s no denying that.
If only they’d asked to look in his closet, which has to be filled with hundreds of versions of that one shirt he always wears.
[NYDN]
