Bob Kraft remains ticked off about Deflategate

Eric Edholm, Yahoo:
The New England Patriots are Super Bowl champions, basking in the afterglow of a victory parade on Wednesday and a fourth championship in the past 14 years.

But Patriots owner Robert Kraft still has a few burning embers of his pre-game anger over the deflate-gate controversy.

One of the lasting images of the Super Bowl week was a confident and defiant Kraft striding to the podium at the Patriots’ first media access in Arizona, reading a statement that essentially challenged the NFL to produce evidence his team wantonly violated league rules and apologize to his team if unable to do so.

Bob Kraft got off the plane in Glendale, AZ. a week before the Super Bowl and gave a passionate 489 word speech to all who would listen. He was fired up then, and is still revved up. Bob will remain that way until he gets what he is looking for. And that would be an apology from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Following the Ray Rice investigation and complete debacle by Roger Goodell, it was New England Patriots' owner Bob Kraft who stood by him during the uproar over how the league handled the domestic assault scandal. It was also Kraft who lobbied other owners to publicly support Goodell. If you fast forward to Roger Goodell's pre-Super Bowl state-of-the-league address, Bob Kraft is nowhere to be found. Not acknowledging the commissioner after receiving the Vince Lombardi trophy was noteworthy as well.


“I was really upset,” Kraft said. “I was trying to take the heat off our guys ... it really ticked me off. [Team president and son] Jonathan and I were flying out there and chatting about it. I just decided, it was back and forth and back and forth, and I just decided to say something.

Bob Kraft must be a heckuva card player. He has all his chips on the table in support of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. Bob has called their "bluff." The NFL would be best served in folding their hand.



Bob Kraft has taken a page out of Patriots' head coach Bill Belichick's playbook. Bob is already talking about "we're on to Super Bowl 50." Instead of naming it Super Bowl L with Roman numerals like in previous Super Bowls, this game will be marketed with the Arabic numerals "50". It will be known as the "Golden Super Bowl." Kraft is planning to be at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. If Roger Goodell has any intention of joining him, an apology would be a step in the right direction.


Paul Murphy is a freelance writer from New Hampshire.

Follow me on Twitter at @_prmurphy

For more of my articles, click here.





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