Patriots owner ‘reluctantly’ takes penalties
DEFLATEGATE: Decision has no bearing on appeal by Brady
TORONTO — Finally, somebody let some air out of the pumped-up melodrama around Deflategate.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on Tuesday parked his anger, bitterness and defensiveness and told reporters he “reluctantly” will accept the harsh team punishments the NFL handed down a week ago — the forfeiture of a first-round draft pick next year and a fourth-rounder in 2017, plus a $1-million fine.
Kraft made the announcement in San Francisco at the NFL owners’ spring meeting.
His decision has no bearing on quarterback Tom Brady’s appeal of his four-game suspension without pay, for what the league determined was his likely role in the pre-game deflation of the team’s 12 footballs used on offence in the Patriots’ 45-7 romp over the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game in January.
Immediately after Kraft’s announcement, speculation exploded that he decided not to appeal his team’s punishments only as the first leg of a quid-pro-quo with commissioner Roger Goodell, the trade-off being an eventual reduction in Brady’s suspension.
Greg Bedard of Sports Illustrated’s MMQB, however, tweeted that he is informed Kraft acted Tuesday irrespective of whatever might happen with Brady’s punishment on appeal, if anything.
After the Patriots last Thursday posted a 2,000-word online screed rebutting the findings of the controversial Wells Report — on which the NFL based its harsh punishments — and after Kraft told Peter King of MMQB on the weekend he remained livid about how the NFL treated his team from the get-go, the belief was the combative yet powerful owner would fight the league’s findings and punishments tooth and nail, either by appealing at the league level or even in the courts. But no.
“We have concentrated the power of the adjudication of problems in the office of the commissioner,” Kraft told NFL writers. “Although I might disagree with what is decided, I do have respect for the commissioner and believe that he is doing what he perceives is in the best interest of the full 32 (teams).”