Together Patriots owner Robert Kraft and head coach Bill Belichick have presided over a 20 plus year period of unprecedented NFL success. Two different dynasties, 9 Super Bowl appearances, and 6 Lombardi trophies.
But the honeymoon may be over. Tuesday speaking at the NFL Owners meetings in Palm Beach Kraft had a message for his head coach.
What have you done for me lately?
“I’m a Patriots fan. First, more than anything,” Kraft said. “It bothers me that we haven’t been able to win a playoff game in the last three years.”
Kraft placed the team’s recent failures on Belichick’s shoulders identifying a string of bad draft classes at the culprit. While Kraft was pleased with what Belichick and the personnel department pulled off in the draft prior to last season, he wants to see more of it.
“I’m happy that I think we had a great draft last year, and it made up for what happened the previous four years or so,” Kraft said about the Patriots 2021 draft class. “I look forward to hopefully having a great draft this year. That’s the only way you can build your team for the long term and consistently that have the chance of winning is having a good draft.”
The shaky drafting goes back even further than the past 4 seasons. The Patriots have drafted only one Pro Bowl player between 2014-2020 and it was a punter, Jake Bailey. From 2017 on there were far more misses than hits as the Pats wasted prime draft capital on players like Derek Rivers, Sony Michel, Isaiah Wynn, Duke Dawson, N’Keal Harry, JoeJuan Williams, Chase Winovich, Yodny Cajuste, Josh Uche, Anfernee Jennings, Devin Asiasi and Dalton Keene. All these players were draft round 3 or higher. Many were flat out busts, and none justified their draft cost.
Belichick admitted as much and reportedly took a more ‘collaborative approach’ to last year’s draft which yielded several impact players like Christian Barmore (2nd) Rhamondre Stevenson (4th) and Quarterback Mac Jones (1st.) Kraft believes this was a step in the right direction.
“I expect it to happen as soon as this year,” Kraft said about a Patriots turnaround. “I think we’ve made the commitments as an organization and I think we have a lot of talent and some wonderful young men from last year and a couple in the weeds from before. It’s a chance for them to grow and come together and hopefully the team comes together. I think on these young quarterbacks, the good ones, in the second year they’ve usually grown a great deal. I’m a big fan of Mac Jones. I see how hard he works and he wants everything to go right, puts the time and energy and his personality as a team guy so we have a chance. Without a good coach and quarterback, no matter how good the other players are, I don’t think you can win consistently. Hopefully, I believe we have both, an outstanding coach and a good young prospect at quarterback. ”
For their entire time together, Kraft has let Belichick shop for the groceries and cook the meal so to speak. Full control over personnel and coaching. A lesson he learned from mistakes made during Bill Parcels’ tenure in New England. Last offseason Kraft opened up the checkbook and allowed Belichick to spent a record $280 million on a mixed bag of high prices free agents. This offseason Belichick has chosen not to hire or appoint a true defensive or offensive coordinator. Kraft knows there is a method to Belichick’s madness, thought admits he doesn’t always understand it.
“I think Bill [Belichick] has a unique way of doing things,” Kraft said. “It’s worked out pretty well up to now so…I know what I don’t know. And I try to stay out of the way things I don’t know. I think he’s pretty good. I don’t know, is it over 40 years of experience doing it? So it doesn’t sometimes look straight line to our fans, or to myself but I’m results-oriented.”
Translation: Bill does things the way he wants. I don’t understand it, but it’s worked…”up to now.”
Make no mistake, Bill Belichick may not be on the hot seat, but he is on notice. Results are what matter and Robert Kraft is making it abundantly clear that the past is the past and Bill Belichick’s future in Foxboro is tied to success going forward. Something that has become increasingly more difficult given the surge in performance and spending of some of the Patriots biggest rivals.
“We really have to worry about our situation, take care of business” Kraft said. “I can’t worry about my competition. Yeah, secretly, we’d maybe like them to stumble but I gotta focus on our business and make sure we’re doing the right thing. If you do that, good things happen. I think we had a period of two decades that were unbelievable with a salary cap and we have to find a way to sustain it and keep it going. I’ve said to you, after my family there’s nothing more important to me than the New England Patriots and winning football games. That’s my passion. So whatever I can do, hopefully in a small way, I’m there. I’m not happy that we haven’t won a playoff game in three years. So I think about that a lot.”
