What Should/Can Kraft Do?

I wish any of the options were possible (other than Kraft diplomatically stating there should be apologies to BB and Brady). Wells said "no more leaks." Right. That lasted about 2 weeks.

These side issues offer the appearance of action by the NFL. In the end, if the officials lie and say all of the balls were within limits when checked (and no records were kept), and later the balls were not within limits, then the answer from this debacle will be "we find no evidence," which leaves the insinuation of foul play but isn't a conviction. Barring proof of the Dolts tampering with the football (which would be awesome, exonerating and entertaining, but highly unlikely), we get to hear more of this for the indefinite future. I look on the bright side - we could be fans of teams like the Falcons or Browns, teams with admissions of violations for which no one cares because they suck. The Pats are discussed constantly because they rock and won yet another title. And I take pleasure at the fact this scandal has produced multiple other scandals involving some of the self-righteous holy rollers talking on NFL fair play.

I would love to see the NFL can Goodie, because what is clear is Tags or Rozelle, when presented with complaints, called the teams and addressed the complaints offline rather than through Goodie's "reality television" approach with stings and scandals. That is why blatant cheating was punished (see Donkeys and salary cap), but more mundane issues were not front page news.

I'll take door number One, hire a top notch legal firm to investigate the whole matter. This should lead to doors two, three, and four. The mere hint of this will rattle some cages and possibly get people pointing fingers and throwing each other under the bus. Plus the league doesn't want a civil war, it cost $$$$ Ive been pushing the Al Davis route for the last month, it worked for him over the years.

PatsWickedPissah said:

Bobby has lots of options at his disposal now. He's in what we term a "target rich environment."

1. Hire & pay a top notch lawyer to defend the Pats employee publicly smeared. He can use this investigation to go all discovery on anything both espn the NFL knew. Remember the offending espn reporter is married to a league official. Emails, etc. could reveal a plan to blame the Pats, or they could not. In any case corporate pukes will be puking in fear.

2. Demand that Goodell fire Kensil. In a private talk Goody HAS to admit Kensil endangered the product and created a firestorm that has not made the league look good. He has to go and so do any minions who were part of his fiasco.

3. Ask for an apology. It needn't be groveling as Kraft is bigger than that but the league owes BB and Tom Brady an apology total some of the tarnish off their legacies. This is critically important especially after what Tom went through with the media.

4. This step is more difficult but Bob should push for at a minimum a public penalty against Grigson and better yet the Colts as the GM is responsible. In my wildest fantasies, no not the cheerleader ones, I'd see a Colts pick transubstantiated into a Pats pick but hey this is not heaven.

Any other thoughts & elaborations?

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1.) As sweet as this would be, its never going to happen. ESPN brings a **** ton of money into the league for MNF. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, and so any attempt by the patriots to do anything directly against ESPN is crazy. In terms of having to defend Mcnally, that is no longer an issue, Schefter dropped the ****ing hammer on the people who were targeting him, If Mcnally were to seek legal council and sue for putting his public info out there, he should do it on his own, with a little bit of a wink wink I got the bill from Kraft.

2.)This should have already happened, and it shouldn't have been demanded. Goodell should have fired him on his own.

3.)Kraft already demanded one. If he doesn't get it, life is going to be very difficult moving forward for rodger.

4.)Short of the wells report showing that the colts tested/****ed with the ball, and that was the one ball that was 2lbs below, there won't be a penalty coming the colts way. As much as the teams don't like snitches, the league WANTS teams to speak up when something ****ed up is going on. Again this whole issue goes away if Kensil doesnt try this ****ed up sting operation.

reflexblue said:

I'll take door number One, hire a top notch legal firm to investigate the whole matter. This should lead to doors two, three, and four. The mere hint of this will rattle some cages and possibly get people pointing fingers and throwing each other under the bus. Plus the league doesn't want a civil war, it cost $$$$ Ive been pushing the Al Davis route for the last month, it worked for him over the years.

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Just to clarify any possible misunderstandings, I intended to advocate Kraft doing all 4.
I think #4 is the least likely to happen, not because of Kraft but because of the owners & Goody.

At the very least I think he should do #1 and fight for his employee that was smeared in the national media. There is blood in the water regarding ESPN and I want him to release the sharks.

PatsWickedPissah said:

Just to clarify any possible misunderstandings, I intended to advocate Kraft doing all 4.
I think #4 is the least likely to happen, not because of Kraft but because of the owners & Goody.

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Concur with all your ideas. Number 1 REALLY needs to happen, and sooner rather than later. Although, hiring the big guns and dropping that investigation/suit about two weeks before the draft would be, to my mind, poetic justice.

Goodell moved the draft to Chicago, and he's all about the image now, trying to spiff things up and all that. Well, he let the Patriots swing in the wind for two weeks prior to the SB, and let them dance in front of the media, likely knowing there was nothing to it and probably hoping to help his buddies in Seattle win that game. It's time to repay that favor and let Goodell and his crew see what life is like on the other side of an investigation. He doesn't want all that media attention taken away prior to the draft, and it might well force his hand on the whole affair. Just the THREAT of it ought have some of the league office heads exploding.

chasa said:

1.) As sweet as this would be, its never going to happen. ESPN brings a **** ton of money into the league for MNF. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, and so any attempt by the patriots to do anything directly against ESPN is crazy. In terms of having to defend Mcnally, that is no longer an issue, Schefter dropped the ****ing hammer on the people who were targeting him, If Mcnally were to seek legal council and sue for putting his public info out there, he should do it on his own, with a little bit of a wink wink I got the bill from Kraft.
.

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Disagree.
So Kraft should let the primary football media outlet just wage war 24/7 on his franchise, his HOF HC and his HOF QB? Were he to sue espn by proxy as I suggested, all he's doing is enriching McNally & his lawyers. BFD. I fail to see the cray-cray in this proxy push back on espn. Failure to stand up only encourages the bully. This lesson should have been learned by all Pats fans in 2007, and re-enforced when the Saints went all FU to Goodell's attack on them. espn needs a shot across the bow that running wild with the anti-Patriots un-named source of the day and having ignorant commentators pile on has consequences. So far there have been no consequences.

BradyManny said:

If the Wells report exonerates the Patriots, then I'm probably fine with Kraft calling it a day with his bold SB week presser.

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Sorry, but "No"! Exhoneration is not enough. We need to be made whole and after all BB,TFB, the Pats, and we fans have been through "It turns out the Pats have done nothing wrong here" is not enough, not by a long shot.

If that is what we get and accept it then expect to hear it ad nauseum as opposing fans discuss the Pats. Just more Pats cheating, they are just better at it now so the league couldn't catch them.

Only one team has ever been known to tape another teams pregame walkthrough, but outside of us, who else knows it was Denver? Ask an average fan this question and do you think the answer will be Denver or the Pats?

Perception becomes reality. The media didn't drag Denver through the mud for this and the league gave this weak sister a slap on the wrist.

How often do you hear that the severity of the penalty proves what the Pats did was egregious?

No, if Spygate should have taught us anything it's that taking one for the league is not an option.

Pats need to fight back and fight back hard. Make the league know that their skeletons will be exposed and a lot of league officials aren't going to like what comes out of any investigations that the Pats will pursue if they don't make this right.

I'm talking full page widespread apologies, sanctions and firings for those involved, and draft picks to the Pats, and loss of picks and fines for the offending parties, both NFL and irresponsible sports media like ESPN.

The Gr8est said:

Pats need to fight back and fight back hard. Make the league know that their skeletons will be exposed and a lot of league officials aren't going to like what comes out of any investigations that the Pats will pursue if they don't make this right.

I'm talking full page widespread apologies, sanctions and firings for those involved, and draft picks to the Pats, and loss of picks and fines for the offending parties, both NFL and irresponsible sports media like ESPN.

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You might be right, but along the lines of perception = reality, there might not be all that much the Patriots can realistically do to undo the harm already done. And I just think that the best thing for it would be for the Wells report to completely exonerate them and serve up the Ravens/Colts/Kensil as a new target for the media consuming public's collective ire, which otherwise has been directed at us. Now, I think there's about a .00001% chance of that happening, so I think we are likely seeing Kraft have to take some proactive action after the report comes out to get closure on the issue.

BradyManny said:

You might be right, but along the lines of perception = reality, but there might not be all that much the Patriots can realistically do to undo the harm already done. And I just think that the best thing for it would be for the Wells report to completely exonerate them and serve up the Ravens/Colts/Kensil as a new target for the media consuming public's collective ire, which otherwise has been directed at us. Now, I think there's about a .00001% chance of that happening, so I think we are likely seeing Kraft have to take some proactive action after the report comes out to get closure on the issue.

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For the Ravens/Colts/Kensil to become the new target for the media consuming public's collective ire, the punishment to these entities needs to be significant.

If the public thinks that the severity of the penalty proves the egregiousness of the crime, as our critics point to for Spygate, then the penalty to these entities needs to be orders of magnitude more significant than the Spygate penalties were, and the Pats need to receive significant compensation to leave no doubt that they were the aggrieved party.

I was one who thought Bob was late in standing up for the team, his coach, and QB. But when he did, he came up big time. Also his statement on the podium after the SB win, was outstanding.

With those 2 statements, he is all in on this and can't back down. I don't think he will. But as to what he should do depends on the final results of the investigation and any actions the NFL take as a result of the findings.. If it is not what he feels is complete vindication, then he should go nuke on the NFL.

The leaks need to be investigated. They are probably the most troubling issue now. It wasn't just leaking the investigation, it was changing the investigation to avoid league wrong doing.

Kensil leaves the booth because an official is caught stealing balls. The next day the Patriots are getting investigated. Not the league, not Kensil, but a team who had nothing to do with the reason the investigation started.

For a month every leak casts aspersions on NE and every leak avoids that the league investigation started from a league official committing a crime which had nothing to do with NE. That's not leaking information, that's creating a narrative, a narrative that conveniently leaves out the most important issue- league corruption.

People in the league trying to blame teams for their wrongdoing is corruption. The people making those leaks aren't sloppy, they are precisely placing information to distract. That's pretty corrupt ****.

PatsWickedPissah said:

Just to clarify any possible misunderstandings, I intended to advocate Kraft doing all 4.
I think #4 is the least likely to happen, not because of Kraft but because of the owners & Goody.

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l believe if the krafts take up option number one all the rest of your list will fall into place like dominoes. If its revealed that kensil was setting up the pats to the detriment of the game than goodell would have to fire kensil. Since this would be a massive black eye to the nfl the owners would mot likely demand that goodell follow kensil. If its found that gregson and irsey conspired with kensil the colts would be penalized, maybe we would receive some of their picks. If what we all think happened did its a very serious matter and warrants very serious consequences for those who conspired against the pats. But its up to BK to initiate the process, the employee certainly doesn't have the means to take on the nfl. The resulting story would be so big it would make headline news if all the clown show participants were exposed.

MassPats38 said:

I would love to see the NFL can Goodie, because what is clear is Tags or Rozelle, when presented with complaints, called the teams and addressed the complaints offline rather than through Goodie's "reality television" approach with stings and scandals.

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True. But on the other hand it's looking more and more like this was a Kensil rogue op (seems odd, though admittedly not impossible, for Blandino to lie about not knowing anything about this before the AFCCG, for example). Florio says that when Grigson made his complaint before the AFCCG he spoke to Kensil.

My guess is that league procedure is for the Pats to then get a "if you're doing anything cut it out and we'll be watching" warning. But instead of doing that, Kensil keeps it under his hat and decides to run his own sting. If this were an official sting, the refs would have been told to measure and log the pre-game and halftime pressures. From everything we've heard, the officials were in the dark, other than for maybe a "call me (Kensil) if you see anything remotely hinky about the balls".

The "Kensil rogue sting" theory really does make all this stuff tie together, I think.

The Gr8est said:

Only one team has ever been known to tape another teams pregame walkthrough, but outside of us, who else knows it was Denver? Ask an average fan this question and do you think the answer will be Denver or the Pats?

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Be careful pushing that. Recall who the Denver head coach was when that happened and recall who currently employs that person.

Glad you mentioned that. I cringe every time a Patriots fan cites that walkthrough filming by Denver.

rlcarr said:

Be careful pushing that. Recall who the Denver head coach was when that happened and recall who currently employs that person.

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Not a problem for me, who was he the head coach of at the time?

Cleveland wasn't punished for Spygate.

The Gr8est said:

Not a problem for me, who was he the head coach of at the time?

Cleveland wasn't punished for Spygate.

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????

The Denver head coach (who was punished by the NFL) when Denver got caught taping walkthroughs was one Josh McDaniels. Currently employed as the offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots.

rlcarr said:

????

The Denver head coach (who was punished by the NFL) when Denver got caught taping walkthroughs was one Josh McDaniels. Currently employed as the offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots.

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Wasn't he the one who reported it?

What Kraft should do is request to not play on Monday Night Football again as long as ESPN is running the show.