The answer is no one. Kraft obviously loves the team, the area, and winning. He learned from some early growing pains to stay the F*%# out of the way after hiring the best in the business. From all accounts he has a great relationship with bill, the players, coaches, and tries to learn something from them everyday.
All of that said I am still EXTREMELY disappointed in him. Add everything he has ever done and his ledger is still in the black but only for all the good he did before bending over. I can forgive spygate as a learning experience as no one could have guessed Gotohell would punish jaywalking with the death penalty. Kraft has set the bar so high for his team that I expect more from all of them and that includes him. Would I expect the average owner to give up his seat at the table and potentially lose millions? No. He is not the average owner, before this I thought he was by far the best in the business. Because of that I expected him to be a man of principle, to have learned from spygate, to stand up and say this is wrong and I will fight it with everything I got for as long as I can. He did not do that and it is a stain on his record that will never be washed clean.
I do not have all the facts. I can't tell you what went down at the owner meetings. Is it possible that Kraft did the best he could in a ****ty situation? Yeah it's possible. That's not what it looks and feels like to me though. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall because I firmly honestly believe he decided money and being allowed at the big boy table was worth more to him then his franchise and all of the fans. I can never forgive him for that no matter how much other good things he has done. Fair? Eh I will let you decide but for me this has turned my opinion of him as a person, and as an owner very sour.
Good post.
Let's say, to take this to an extreme, that Kraft is the best NFL* owner.
And the best NFL* owner behaves like a DB in the judgment of his fans, when push comes to shove.
Since he is the best in the business, and he behaved the way he did, isn't it possible that NFL* owners are at best a necessary evil (notwithstanding the example of the Green Bay experiment)?
It's turned my opinion of owners, or more like opened my eyes, with Kraft being an exemplar of the class. They have an owner's
meeting every year. They're
business partners. They're not competitors.
They're the guys on that old Star Trek episode saying "Four hundred quadroons on the newcomers!"
They hire young guys (and their old coaches). They have them run into each other until their brains turn to jelly. They market to a tribal warfare need in our psyches. We buy it. We buy "our" colors and we recite the history of "our" team.
The NFL* - a group of 32 wealthy individuals, and their employees - is a business that both perpetuates and fills this need. Football and its constituent brands are the product. We're the consumers. And since I bought into pro football when I was a little kid, I couldn't get my head out of it if I tried. Powerful stuff.
But bottom line: I don't care much about Kraft personally.
We're consumers of a product and we like to forget that. This whole Kraft-hating thing is more convenient than remembering it.
Maybe he coulda woulda shoulda stood up against the league from day one - in fact, that's what he said, after the fact.
I guess the ultimate would be a great owner in terms of handling the business, combined with a combative owner on behalf of his fans. Do we think that arrangement lasts? Maybe. I guess Al Davis comes to mind. But one Al Davis was more than enough for the NFL*.
How do you get at what the real problem is? I guess we can opt out by not consuming the product. Throw out your gear, don't go to games, watch the Discovery Channel on Sundays in the fall, forget you ever heard of the Patriots. Because the moment you give a crap about his product you're lining Kraft's pockets and those of the League*. Truthfully I don't think salvation was ever coming from Kraft - or would from any other present-era owner.
He does everything he can to stoke demand for his product, and the product of the League* in general. But in the end (for a dyed in the wool fan like me) the demand is inelastic... I'm in.
To us, the Patriots are "our" team. Financially, the Patriots are Kraft's team. Our belief that they are "ours" is the only reason that you can make money from owning them... but that doesn't make them ours. We're playing make-believe and that's the whole point. It's an escapist loyalty.
So like I said the easiest thing to do is hate on Kraft. I'm more disillusioned/disappointed in a crooked league, and a little bit amazed at myself that I'd think "my" team owner would be different.
No he wouldn't. None of them would. And even if they would, if whoever owns Tampa made some principled stand, that wouldn't make one of us reward him with our loyalty.
The product is the team, not the owner. The owner just benefits from our brand loyalty.
I think he's good at his job. I used to also think he was some sort of great guy, no real reason actually. Just because he was "our" team owner. Now I think he's what he is, the guy who owns the team, that's all.
He has a job, he seems to do it pretty well from a financial perspective - which is how he's judged in his world. But he's also done it well from a fan perspective. We reward him through the medium of the Patriots. He could give two shlitz if we don't personally adore him.
So anybody here turning off your TV this year? Quitting Patsfans? I'm not.
All of this pays Kraft, and Goodell for that matter. Even our *****ing and moaning on a bulletin board. No fans, no game.
