Patriots insist there’s no rift between Kraft, Belichick, Brady
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — On the field, the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots are right where they want to be heading into the post-season.
As the AFC’s top seed and the owners of a first-round bye, the 13-3 Patriots will get to rest up during the opening weekend of the playoffs. But as they prepare to begin their latest run, their biggest opponent might be the perception of a fracturing relationship between arguably the franchise’s three most important pieces.
The Patriots dismissed as “flat-out inaccurate” a report suggesting a rift involving owner Robert Kraft, coach Bill Belichick and star quarterback Tom Brady on Friday.
The three released a joint statement hours after an ESPN report, citing undisclosed sources, detailed an array of tension.
The story highlighted purported disputes over Brady’s personal body coach, Alex Guerrero, in player-medical affairs. Also mentioned is a supposed difference between Kraft and Belichick over the decision to trade backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. The story implied Brady has taken issue with a lack of praise from Belichick this season.
The statement said the three have had a “very good and productive working relationship” for 18 years and they regret having to “respond to these fallacies.”
Despite the reported off the field issues, the Patriots have thrived on it.
Even after losing receiver Julian Edelman in the preseason to a knee injury and linebacker Dont’a Hightower in October to a season-ending pectoral injury, they enter the playoffs with the NFL’s top-ranked offence and a defence that is allowing just 18.5 points per game.
Brady is also an MVP candidate, and passed Brett Favre for the most wins in one season for a quarterback after turning 40 years old.
Still, there are questions about Brady’s durability heading in his 15th post-season. He threw for a league-leading 4,577 yards passing and 32 touchdowns, but he also got hit a lot more than he did last season (32 sacks in 2017 after just 15 in 2016).
It didn’t stop the Patriots from averaging 28.6 points.
Brady said his mind hasn’t been far from the football field this week.
“We’re trying to stay sharp and we’ve worked hard to get to this point, but there’s still a lot more to go,” Brady said. “You know, we’re still writing our story, and hopefully we write a good one.”