With ouster, Kraft ‘reclaims’ ownership
Robert Kraft stands as the last pillar of the Patriots dynasty still in place at Patriot Place. The emotional decision to “mutually part ways” with legendary coach Bill Belichick on Thursday made that eventuality a reality.
Inevitably, the sun sets on every empire. Belichick was the NFL’s feared emperor for much of his 24 seasons as Patriots coach, but the Patriots always were and remain Kraft’s kingdom. Belichick only acted like he answered to no one.
At the NFL owners’ meetings in 2009, Kraft made a point. He said there’s a difference between owning and renting. The implication was clear. Given wide latitude by ownership and plenipotentiary power — ”Every decision has been his. We’ve always supported him,” reiterated Kraft on Thursday — Belichick was merely renting a Patriots football operation molded in his image. Kraft owned it, and the right to take it back at any time.
That happened in a collegial and classy close to an era. Kraft pulled the trigger no matter how this decision is framed publicly. Kudos to Belichick for exiting with humor, humanity, and gratitude, this relationship ended the right way in large part thanks to the occasionally cantankerous coach.
Credit Kraft for not wavering after it became clear Belichick, even with a six-Super-Bowl-title oeuvre, had overstayed his winning welcome and overestimated the impact of his coaching.
You don’t get to be a billionaire businessman without making uncomfortable decisions.
“At heart, I will always be a sentimental sports fan. So, this is an emotional day for me. Some of my happiest and most memorable moments were celebrated with my family during Bill’s tenure here,” said Kraft.
“He is the greatest coach of all time, which makes this decision to part ways so hard. But this is a move that we mutually agreed that is needed at this time.”
The owner later added: “What has gone on here the last three, four years isn’t what we want. So, we have a responsibility to do what we can to fix it to the best of our ability.”
A few years of mediocre football didn’t erase nearly a quarter-century of glory. That’s why Kraft, who is fond of the saying, “Measure nine times and cut once,” took his time in executing the decision to remove the greatest coach of all time from his football throne. This wasn’t unseating Arthur Smith or Mike Vrabel.
But it was a throne that Kraft put Belichick on and always had the right to reclaim.
Just as Belichick enjoys taking credit for providing the platform for Tom Brady’s legend, likewise Kraft facilitated the legend of Belichick. Hiring him while going through considerable hoops to do it in 2000 remains the best decision of Kraft’s career.
Multiple people advised Kraft to drop his pursuit of Belichick, who famously resigned as “HC of the NYJ” on a napkin after one day. At Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta, influential people in the NFL, including commissioner Paul Tagliabue, tried to talk Kraft out of hiring Belichick. They told him Belichick was a disaster.
Kraft held his ground and got his man, trading a 2000 first-round pick, along with 2001 fourthand seventh-rounders to Enemy of the State Bill Parcells and the Jets for Belichick, a 2001 fifthround pick, and a 2002 seventh-rounder.
It changed the course of NFL history.
“I trusted my instincts to bring Bill back to
New England in 2000 after immediately regretting not hiring him after working with him in 1996,” said Kraft.
“I believe the greatest trade in the history of sports was the trade for Bill,” team president Jonathan Kraft said in a 2017 radio interview.
Tacitly choosing Belichick over Brady after the 2019 season by empowering Belichick to make the final call on Brady’s worth was arguably Kraft’s worst decision. Kraft must own that error. It turned out the emperor had no clothes without the QB cloaked in a No. 12 jersey.
Kraft presumed that his brilliant coach had more runway left than a 42-year-old quarterback. Brady played three more seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, winning a seventh Super Bowl and guiding the
Bucs to three division titles and five playoff wins.
Belichick lasted four additional seasons, compiling a 2939 overall record with one postseason appearance, zero playoff wins, and three losing seasons, capped by a 4-13 campaign.
In 11 seasons between Cleveland and New England with someone other than Brady as his primary quarterback, Belichick owns three winning seasons, two playoff appearances, and one playoff victory — defeating the 1994 Patriots.
The 2023 season was the worst of Belichick’s career and Kraft’s ownership tenure. The team recorded back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since Kraft rescued it from the clutches of James Busch Orthwein in 1994.
Belichick sold the Krafts a bill of goods that
The System could keep churning out wins without a GOAT-level quarterback.
Naturally, Kraft wanted to believe that the team’s management system, not the transcendent greatness of a singular employee, was foremost responsible for the Patriots’ success — 19 consecutive winning seasons from 2001-19.
That notion played to his ego and that of a franchise that prides itself in being better than its brethren.
Enabling the Hubris of the Hoodie ultimately ensured that neither Brady nor Belichick ended their careers in Foxborough, a painful outcome for Kraft. It’s also one that might ding his Hall of
Fame candidacy. That would be unfair and unfortunate.
The crash landing of the dynasty doesn’t change the fact that Kraft made the Patriots’ dominance possible and held the Holy Trinity of himself, Belichick, and Brady together longer than thought possible.
As a source privy to some of the inner workings and complications of the Belichick-Brady relationship said, when asked about Kraft’s role in the dynasty’s dissolution: “The last 10 years of holding it together was the real magic.”
During that time, the Patriots advanced to five Super Bowls and lifted the Lombardi Trophy three times, with the friction in the background between Brady and Belichick bubbling to the surface by 2017.
The decision to retain Belichick over Brady was wrong. But Kraft is correct in moving on from the 71-year-old Belichick. The team needs a new voice and a new direction as it enters a rebuild.
Kraft took his team back with a velvet vaudeville hook.
It was never Belichick’s, even if he’ll always be most synonymous with it.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at christopher.gasper@globe.com. Follow him @cgasper and on Instagram @cgaspersports.