For those who held on to some hope of the Patriots getting their first-round pick back, especially after Robert Kraft said Monday he wrote a letter to commissioner Roger Goodell requesting it, don’t hold your breath.
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This letter came towards the end of the 2015 season and asked the league to consider new information that became available after the NFL initially stripped the Pats of that pick.
Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald notes that Kraft would not say whether Goodell responded but did say the team has done everything it could do to recoup the pick.
“I really, I pray and desire”, Kraft said.
Kraft, speaking to a group of reporters at the league owners meetings in Boca Raton, Florida, said he wrote the letter more than a month ago, according to ProFootball Talk.
For what it’s worth, Kraft complimented Goodell for other aspects, saying he’s “done a very good job”.
The only thing the 74-year old said is that he is “moving on from that” and that he and his organization have done “everything we can do” to get the picks back.
“I don’t think you’ll see any momentum among our peers”, Kraft said.
League and union have been negotiating potential changes to the sport’s system of player discipline and Goodell’s role in it. The union is seeking independent arbitration for players’ appeals of discipline imposed by the league in cases under the sport’s integrity-of-the-game rules, like Brady’s, and under its personal conduct policy.
That includes not pursuing legal action because, “When you join the National Football League, it’s a partnership and you agree to abide by certain rules and conditions”. If the numbers don’t clearly work in the league’s favor, they’re buried. I just say, you think of the 34 years before we bought the team and just finished 22 years, we’ve had the privilege of going to 11 conference championship games.
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Kraft went on to comment that he was disappointed the National Football League hadn’t shared any results from pressure testing balls during the last season. “In this age of parity, everything is – the scheduling, the salary cap – it’s very hard to compete without the lifeblood of the draft. So we understand the importance, and I assure you we’ve done everything we can do that has a chance of success”. “But they chose to do it their way”.
