Bedard: NFL Owners More United Than Ever Against Patriots
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Robert Kraft may be the loneliest man on Earth right now. He lost a lot of fans with the way he handled DeflateGate, and now it's as apparent as ever that he also alienated the league's other 31 owners.
Roger Goodell think-pieces continue to tumble in as training camp begins for teams around the NFL, with prominent writers declaring the commissioner's job "fatally weakened" and wondering how he could "save" his job. The latest, from SI's Greg Bedard, goes completely the other way and declares Goodell "more secure in his job than he has been in years," but sheds some light on just how much the league is stacked against Robert Kraft and the Patriots.
Bedard isn't praising Goodell one bit here. He's expressing a dark reality that pained him to write. The article contains this particularly savage takedown: "There's nothing more dangerous than a person in power who thinks they are more intelligent and virtuous than they really are. Goodell is both."
But he's not blaming Goodell for the ugly, public 545-day debacle that was DeflateGate, he's placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Kraft.
The gist of Bedard's piece is that the Patriots' willingness to fight an extremely public battle against the NFL ("NFL" meaning the other 31 owners), and their role in dragging the mess of DeflateGate into the public eye as much as they did, united the other 31 owners against Kraft. "It's the Patriots vs. Everyone Else" is nothing new around here, but this passage from Bedard's article puts into context just how wide the rift has really become:
Even if Patriots owner Robert Kraft wanted to seek retribution and lead an ouster of Goodell, which all of New England would love to see (it's about the only thing Kraft can do to reclaim his rightful place among Patriots fans), it's not going to happen. NFL owners agreed to the rules and also that the threshold was a "preponderance of the evidence." That the Patriots hit back so aggressively — both off the record and, later, on it — only bonded the other 31 teams against the Patriots' position even more. It's O.K. to appeal a league decision, but to engage in a lengthy all-out assault against the league and its personnel is just not how it's done in the executive lodge.
Bedard is certainly referring to Kraft's press conference demanding an apology from Goodell and continued public attacks on the commissioner and league, as well as the Patriots' own website WellsReportInContext.com. These decisions obviously helped fuel DeflateGate's media wildfire that almost immediately burned out of control. But it's curious that the league appears to be ignoring the inaccurate report leaked by the league to ESPN that was the "Big Bang" that sparked the wildfire in the first place. Chris Mortensen's infamous "11 out of 12" tweet was the cigarette in the leaves.
SEE ALSO: Patriots Update Wells Report In Context Site, Disclose Feisty Emails With Jeff Pash
It's also undoubtedly someone from within the NFL that leaked the information about Tom Brady's destroyed cellphone, among other leaks that helped spur public discussion in favor of the league against the Patriots. Both sides were complicit in the outrageous amount of discussion that took place over air pressure in footballs, most of which never needed to happen.
Bedard adds that the league was particularly unhappy about the Patriots' "public flogging" of NFL lead counsel Jeff Pash, who emailed team lawyer Daniel Goldberg soon after Super Bowl XLIX to say he was "hopeful that the investigation can now proceed in a calm, quiet, and professional way." Obviously, that didn't happen. I blame literally everyone. Yes, I too am part of everyone.
Still, this email from Pash is only known because the Patriots published it on WellsReportInContext.com. It's the unfortunate reality for the Patriots that the team's treatment of Pash "did not go over well," as Bedard put it, and it only drove Mr. Kraft and the other 31 owners further apart. It's too much to suggest that this is all Mr. Kraft's fault, but regardless of who you blame, the league stands strongly, firmly against the Patriots. And now the wedge between New England and the rest of the league is as wide as it's ever been.
It's frustrating from a New England perspective to see just how much the league is united against the Patriots, even after how badly they were treated in their punishments for whatever did or didn't happen in DeflateGate. And the battle is far from over. The only way for Mr. Kraft to win back the fans he alienated during DeflateGate may be to force Goodell to hand him a fifth Lombardi Trophy. And now, it's as definitive as ever that another championship would not just be a victory over their opponent in the Super Bowl, but a victory over the league as a whole.
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Have a news tip or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.
