Kraft: It’s OK if haters want to keep hating
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is reveling in the team’s fifth Super Bowl title.
“Think about the eight days I had. We had Elton John perform at a party. We have the Super Bowl, where from the depths of depression, we go to the elation of a victory,” Kraft told Andrea Kramer on HBO’s Real Sports. “We have this trophy, and on a snowy day in Boston, we have over a million people. Then the president invites you to dinner with the prime minister [ of Japan]. It’s a pretty cool week.”
After Kraft said that, Kremer suggested that “it’s good to be Robert Kraft,” to which he replied: “Sometimes.”
That could be a bit of foreshadowing in Kraft’s case. Aside from the highs, he was asked about the controversies the Patriots have encountered over the past decade. From losing a firstround pick and racking up nearly a million dollars in fines for illegally videotaping opposing teams’ signals from the wrong location in 2007 to watching quarterback Tom Brady’s four- game suspension for his role in Deflategate as it played out, it has not always been a smooth road for the Patriots owner.
“When anyone wins at anything too often, then you start to bring out feelings that aren’t maybe the most collegial in other people,” Kraft said. “Envy and jealousy are incurable diseases. The haters still hate. And I understand it and we’ll do our best to keep them in that position.”
As perhaps expected, Kraft was glowing in his praise for Brady.
“He’s just not the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL, he’s an amazing person and it’s genuine,” Kraft said. “And as nice as everybody thinks he is, he’s nicer. And to see anyone attack him as an individual or his integrity, that was just unfair.”