Robert Kraft tells The MMQB's Peter King that the report of a half-day meeting between him and head coach Bill Belichick to discuss backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo's future before the backup quarterback was dealt to San Francisco is 'a total fabrication and fiction.'
In the words of The MMQB’s Peter King, Patriots owner Robert Kraft has “disputed all tenets of the story” about his franchise that was published on ESPN.com on Friday.
Speaking to him in a telephone interview, King reported that Kraft told The MMQB that he “absolutely” believes Bill Belichick will be the head coach of the team in 2018.
Authored by Seth Wickersham, Friday’s story on ESPN.com, entitled “For Kraft, Brady and Belichick, is this the beginning of the end?” detailed strife among the triumvirate the owner, the head coach and the quarterback Tom Brady form at One Patriot Place.
The focal points of Wickersham’s piece were the relationship Brady’s personal trainer and business partner, Alex Guerrero, has with the team, the quarterback’s objection to Belichick’s continued negative coaching style and a directive from Kraft that the coach trade backup QB Jimmy Garoppolo.
Wickersham’s story reported that Kraft and Belichick met two weeks before the trading deadline “to discuss the quarterback situation.
“According to staffers,” the ESPN.com story said, “the meeting ran long, lasting half the day” and “ended with a clear mandate to Belichick: trade Garoppolo because he would not be in the team’s long-term plans, and then, once again, find the best quarterback in the draft and develop him.”
Kraft refuted all of that, telling King: “Until Monday at the trade deadline – I believe that was Oct. 30 – the last time I talked to Bill about Jimmy’s situation was in a group with Bill, (team president) Jonathan (Kraft), (director of player personnel) Nick Caserio … a small group of us, I think in June. That is the last time I talked to Bill about it. I would see Nick occasionally and say, ‘Anything going on?’
“I assumed once the season started, we’d talk again at the end of the season about it,” Kraft continued. “The next time I spoke with Bill about it was the Monday before the trade deadline. He called me on that Monday and said he got a deal with San Francisco, Jimmy for a second-round pick and (quarterback) Brian Hoyer. Turns out they had to cut Hoyer and then we got him. But really, this was basically a second-round pick and Brian Hoyer for Jimmy. Bill asked me if I was OK with this. I was really taken aback a little bit. I wanted to think about it. I talked to Jonathan, who was OK with it, and I called Bill back and said, ‘OK.’”
Kraft specifically called the report of the half-day meeting with Belichick “a total fabrication and fiction. I am telling you, it’s fiction.”
Kraft did acknowledge to King that, going forward, retaining both Brady and Garoppolo would have been difficult, likely requiring that the team place the franchise tag on the latter in 2018.
King further reported that Wickersham, when reached for comment on Saturday morning, said: “I absolutely stand by my story.”
The Patriots, who as the top seed in the AFC are in the midst of their playoff bye week, issued a joint statement from Kraft, Belichick and Brady on Friday that read: “For the past 18 years, the three of us have enjoyed a very good and productive working relationship. In recent days, there have been multiple media reports that have speculated theories that are unsubstantiated, highly exaggerated or flat out inaccurate. The three of us share a common goal. We look forward to the enormous challenge of competing in the postseason and the opportunity to work together in the future, just as we have for the past 18 years. It is unfortunate that there is even a need for us to respond to these fallacies. As our actions have shown, we stand united.”