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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/01/30/robert-kraft-patriots-nfl-super-bowl-51-falcons-peter-king
Robert Kraft Made a ‘Mistake’ and Turned It Into a Dynasty
The story of how the Pats owner ignored some bad advice to kick-start an era of NFL dominance. Plus why the 49ers hired John Lynch to be GM, a TV legend signs off and more from Houston as Super Bowl week begins
by Peter King
Robert Kraft/Photo: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
There is only one word to describe what happened Sunday night, on Super Bowl Week eve: wow. The 49ers hired Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist John Lynch to be their general manager, shocking the football world, as the partner for likely new Niners coach Kyle Shanahan.
Well, maybe one other word: risky. “Neither of those guys are afraid of failure, and I’m not either,” club CEO Jed York told me as the clock neared midnight Sunday. Heck of a story, to be told after another story, a truly historic one.
NEW YORK — “Sweetheart,” New England owner Robert Kraft said to me the other day, in his 11th-floor apartment with the view of all views of Central Park, “I’ve got a little factoid for you this week.”
The owner of the Super Bowl-bound Patriots had a big smile when he said it. Seems that a few days earlier, the night before the AFC Championship Game, Kraft had a small dinner party at his home in the posh Boston suburb of Brookline. A video was shown. Three young defensive players—Elandon Roberts, Vincent Valentine and Malcom Brown—came into view and said in unison, “Mr. Kraft! We weren’t born when you bought the team!” He purchased the Patriots in January 1994; they were born in the next three months.
“Twenty-three seasons,” Kraft mused. “Nineteen years in the playoffs. Two years under .500. Twelve conference championship games. Eight Super Bowls. I feel pretty proud.”
Kraft is right in pointing out this extended run of greatness, because it’s unlike any in team sports over the past quarter-century. To make it happen—to make the Patriots the kind of dominant franchise that is so counter to every tenet of pro football, to send the Patriots to the favorite’s role in another Super Bowl this week—the most important thing Kraft did happened nearly two decades ago.
It was the kind of against-the-grain move that will go down in football history as one of the smartest decisions an owner has made.
Against the grain might be putting it mildly.
In fact, one team owner, when Kraft was about to make this momentous decision, advised against it. Kraft remembers this owner’s exact words.
“He said if I did it, I’d be making the biggest mistake of my life,” Kraft said, his voice taking an ominous tone.
The owner: Art Modell of the Baltimore Ravens.
The looming catastrophe: hiring Bill Belichick.
* * *
So there’s a lot going on this United States this morning, and I don’t mean the start of Super Bowl week in Houston. But since this is (mostly) a football column, let’s get to the nuts and bolts of these strangers, Atlanta and New England, meeting in Super Bowl 51. Namely:
• Will the Vengeance-Thy-Name-is-Patriots and Roger Goodell co-exist without fisticuffs this week? (They will.)
• Will Patriots corner Malcolm Butler shadow all-world Julio Jones on Sunday? (I doubt it.)
• Will the Falcons be able to win if Jones is shut down? (The numbers say: without a doubt, yes.)
• Will Tom Brady become the winningest quarterback in the Super Bowl era? (Give me a couple of days to ruminate on that one.)
• And is this the year (with voting looming Saturday) for Terrell Davis to make the Hall of Fame? Or Kurt Warner? Or both, in a class devoid of automatics outside (probably) of LaDainian Tomlinson? (It’s clearly the best shot yet for both.)
We start high above Central Park, 11 afternoons before the Super Bowl. Kraft ducked into the other room at one point to speak with Tom Brady. But for most of two hours on this unseasonably warm January afternoon, the Patriots’ owner reflected on the franchise of our time—hated by many, envied by 31 owners, beloved by six states and the president of the United States (who called Kraft with congratulations 24 hours after the AFC Championship rout of the Steelers), and respected by those who understand how hard it is to post 16 straight winning National Football League seasons.
My favorite Kraft line was about money. “The key to success in business, and the key to life, really, is creating aligned interests with smart people,” he said. “Winning football games has been more important to me than making money. Winning is what turns me on. Money is pretty good, but a shroud has no pockets.”
My favorite Kraft story was about the Belichick hire.
It happened 17 years ago this month, the drama that caused a rift between Belichick and his mentor, Bill Parcells; that caused Belichick to resign as the coach of the Jets within two days of assuming the position; that caused Belichick to sue the NFL and the Jets for not allowing him to coach elsewhere; that prevented Dom Capers from being the coach of the 2000 New England Patriots; and that caused bitter rivals (the Jets and Patriots) to exchange Belichick and five draft choices in the biggest trade for a coach in history.
In short: Belichick was an assistant on Parcells’ Jets staff, and his contract (buttressed by a $1 million bonus from then-owner Leon Hess) called for him to succeed Parcells when Parcells stepped down as coach. Which happened on the night of Jan. 2, 2000, after the Jets finished the 1999 season with a win over Seattle. Parcells’ resignation was announced the following day (he would remain director of football operations).
The Patriots filed a request with the league on the morning of Jan. 3 to interview Belichick for their vacant coaching job (after firing Pete Carroll), but were denied, because the clause in Belichick’s contract tied him to the Jets. The next day Belichick quit due to uncertainty surrounding the sale of the team to Woody Johnson (smart move) and his distaste for non-football-man president Steve Gutman.
The Jets hired Al Groh to coach the team. But they wouldn’t let Belichick out of his deal. The battles between the two teams, involving commissioner Paul Tagliabue and a federal court as well, lasted three weeks.
“To start,” Kraft said, “you need to understand we were without a coach for almost a month, and the other coaches had been hired around the league, and they had hired coaching staffs, and I was getting killed for it. Killed. The league office thought I was crazy for wanting Bill. Everybody in there—George Young, Joe Browne, people at the highest level of the league. It was toxic.
Nobody thought it was a good idea. I was getting killed by the media in Boston. Bill had one winning year in five seasons in Cleveland. And then I got sent video tapes of a couple of his press conferences in Cleveland.”
Proof, he saw, of Belichick’s communication skills. Or lack thereof.
“So after all that,” I said, “were you a little scared of hiring him?”
“Of course!” he said. “How could I not be? I watched those tapes!”
But Kraft remembered a couple of things. In 1996, after he was fired by Cleveland, Belichick was on the market, and Parcells lobbied for Kraft to hire him; Kraft thought Belichick, if he didn’t go to New England, would have ended up coaching on Miami’s staff in 1996. So Kraft okayed the hire, and the Patriots went to the Super Bowl that season, with Belichick’s secondary a big reason.
“I asked the defensive backs, ‘What has Bill [Belichick] brought?’ And they said he always put them in the right position to make plays.’ When Parcells left after the Super Bowl, we decided to clean house, and I met with Bill [Belichick]. Now, we had just started this era of the salary cap a couple years earlier, and to understand the salary cap was to understand value.
The one thing he said to me when he left was, ‘You should sign Troy Brown. Great value there.’ I remembered that. Here was a guy on the other side of the ball, and Bill knew how important he was. And he turned out to be right.”
With the case hung up in court, and the Jets knowing they’d get nothing if they hung on to Belichick for a season, Parcells called Kraft on the night of Jan. 26. The two men hadn’t spoken in three years, since a bitter parting after the Super Bowl season of 1996.
“My [secretary], one night, says to me, ‘Someone saying he’s Darth Vader is on the phone. Do you know who that is?’” Kraft said.
“Oh, I knew who that was.”
Said Parcells: “He was getting ready to hire Capers. I just said to him, ‘I want a 1 [a first-round pick] and something else.’ It really wasn’t that hard.”
The Patriots sent a first-round pick in 2000 and fourth-round and seventh-round picks in 2001 to the Jets for the rights to Belichick, plus a fifth-round pick in 2001 and a seventh-round pick in 2002. (None of the picks mattered but for longtime serviceable defensive lineman Shaun Ellis, taken with that first-rounder by the Jets.)
“He could have held me up for more,” Kraft said.
“I called Bill the next morning,” Parcells said. “I told him to call Kraft. I told him he should make sure to get at least four years in his contract.”
Belichick’s New England deal was announced less than 24 hours after Darth Vader’s phone call.
“I always felt we had a little bit of simpatico,” Kraft said. “It’s like a woman. A spouse. What’s right for me might not be right for some other man. In a football sense, he had product knowledge. Troy Brown. I listened. I remembered. Honestly, it was like when I bought the team. I thought I was going to pay $115 million, maybe $118, $120.
I ended up paying $172 million, the most for a team ever at that time. I broke every rule in business when I did that. But you know why I did it? It’s my hometown team. I loved that team. I knew I’d never get another chance to buy it. So with the coach, I wanted Belichick. I was getting what I wanted if I got him. I’m not thinking about the next year or two. I’m thinking about three years, five years, 10 years. He was going to be with us for a long time.”
Now he has been. And Kraft has no regrets. Four Lombardi Trophies, a few spats … and no regrets. You hear about differences inside the upper echelon of the Patriots, the kind of differences that happen when strong-willed successful people disagree. But the thing about the Patriots is, the disagreements rarely reach the front page of the Globe.
“We’re like a family,” Kraft said. “When we disagree, we disagree in private. In all my businesses, we do not tolerate division from within.”
Now for the obvious question: Won’t this one mean more?
For so many reasons, but mostly because of the war between the NFL and the Patriots over Deflategate and the Tom Brady suspension to start this year, and because of Kraft. He’s an extremely loyal league guy, but got slapped down with such an onerous sanction: a four-game suspension for his quarterback, the loss of first-round and fourth-round draft choices for the team and a $1 million fine.
“Nothing, to me, will ever top the first [Super Bowl win],” Kraft said of the 20-17 upset of the Rams that capped the 2001 season. “It’s right after 9/11. We’re red, white and blue. The Patriots. The underdog. So many people pulling for us. We’d waited 42 years for it.
“This year, to me, is life. When you want something so badly, you work for it and go through the hard times. You persevere. Our organization hasn’t made excuses. What happened was unfortunate. I don’t think it was fair, the league’s penalty on us. But it is what it is. In a way, our fan base has bonded even more with us through the hard times.
“I want Roger [Goodell] to do the right thing for the league, obviously. In this case, I don’t think he did that. He got bad advice from the people around him, and the league didn’t handle it well. But I’ve compartmentalized it. Now we try to win the biggest game of the year.”
“But,” I said, “what would it be like to stand up on the podium after the game and have Roger hand you the Lombardi Trophy?”
Pause. Kraft looked over my shoulder, out the window, toward Central Park.
“It’d be sweet.”
* * *
The Very Interesting Shanahan-Lynch Pairing
John Lynch/Photo: Helen H. Richardson/Getty Images
Sometimes, a story that seems so preposterous when you first hear it makes more sense the longer you digest it. A preface: I’ve always thought an arranged marriage between a coach and a GM is stupid. On very rare occasions (Pete Carroll-John Schneider) it works. Most often (Josh McDaniels-Brian Xanders, Chip Kelly-Howie Roseman, Rex Ryan-John Idzik, Rex Ryan-Doug Whaley, etc.) it does not.
That’s why it seemed odd that the 49ers would place Kyle Shanahan—their coach one week from today—in a room with ace Vikings scout George Paton and then with ace Cardinals scout Terry McDonough, and then smoke would come out of the chimney and Shanahan would say about one of them: “That’s it! That’s my GM!”
It’s just not a smart way to form a partnership. So when Adam Schefter of ESPN reported that John Lynch had contacted Shanahan last week and told him he was interested in leaving TV to be a GM, and Shanahan returned the interest, the story began to make sense.
Lynch spent Thursday night with Jed York in the Bay Area, then flew to Atlanta and had four more interviewing hours with York, and then York saw him debriefed by Shanahan in an Atlanta hotel room … that’s when York thought this was real, and possible.
After going through the Shanahan sessions with Paton on Friday night and then McDonough on Saturday morning, York thought the Lynch fit was best. As did Shanahan.
Shanahan is 37. Lynch is 45. Lynch has watched John Elway go from inexperienced former star player to Super Bowl champion GM. They are friends. Lynch has enjoyed his Fox analyst work, but I am told he longed for something more, something with more substance.
Now he’ll have to figure out whom to hire and trust as his football czars in San Francisco—as Elway has, with Tom Heckert and Matt Russell in Denver. Maybe it’ll be former Tampa Bay GM Mark Dominik, or incumbent personnel man Tom Gamble in San Francisco. But Lynch is going to need help. Lots of it.
The reason why I’m not down on it? I know Lynch. He knows his limitations. He knows he needs a couple of great scouts to help him. Lots of people will recall the last Fox analyst to ascend to the throne of an NFL team without personnel training—Matt Millen in Detroit in 2001—and how miserably he failed.
This may be the same thing. If Lynch doesn’t surround himself with strong personnel people, it will be the same thing. If Lynch and Shanahan don’t find a long-term quarterback, regardless of their long contracts, they will fail in their quest to lead the 49ers out of the wilderness.
“Nothing is guaranteed,” York said late Sunday night. (He also said, “I need some sleep.”) “But so many opportunities are missed in the NFL because people don’t want to do something different. We’re okay with that, because I am confident in Kyle and John. John has watched John Elway, and how he’s built a team in Denver.
As easy as it is to say he hasn’t built a team yet—I get that—I talk to Kyle, and he says John is the most prepared of all the TV [people] he meets in the production meetings before games. We understand we’ll have to live with growing pains, but I’m willing to do that because I believe the upside with both of them is so great.”
It all sounds good—the enlightened GM, the overly bright coach—but nothing will matter until one of them picks the right quarterback to help rebuild the Niners. Knowing each man the way I do, I expect they both know it.
* * *
Bon Voyage, Brent Musburger
Brent Musberger/Photo: Icon Sportswire/Getty Images
It’s a shame that, except for two years in the mid-’90s when he hosted a halftime segment on ABC’s “Monday Night Football,” Brent Musburger hasn’t worked the NFL for a quarter-century. He was Chris Berman before Berman, the iconic host of the iconic studio show “The NFL Today,” which was appointment viewing before and during football games until CBS parted ways with Musburger in 1990.
He’s 77 now, and has been a fixture on ESPN college games for years, and he is retiring now to move to Las Vegas to work with a new sports betting network; the Las Vegas Review-Journalreported he’ll host an afternoon talk show on sports and gambling on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. His final game on ESPN is Tuesday night with Jay Bilas: Georgia at Kentucky.
“I always knew I would head back out west one day, closer to our two boys in Montana,” Musburger told me Friday. “[Sports gambling] is a growth industry, and with the Trump administration in office, it might be a chance it grows beyond the Nevada borders. People like the action, and those in the NFL who are honest realize how much the gaming factor has played into the growth of the league.”
Three questions for Musburger, from his home in Jupiter, Fla. (he’ll soon move to Nevada), yield this insight: He might not have been working football over the years, but he sure knows a lot about it. (More about my personal feelings on Musburger in Ten Things I Think I Think.)
MMQB: How much have you missed working the NFL?
Musburger: Here is what I miss. Things like this: If you give Mr. Belichick an extra week, he will take one thing away from the Falcons. Just watching the games and watching the Patriots, you learn what he does so well and why he’s such a great coach. Also: How is the money flowing? What are the bettors saying about this game? I have fun with the games, and look forward to all of them.
I miss the NFL a lot. This era of NFL players I covered in college. Matt Ryan, at Boston College … one of the most intelligent players I dealt with. Tom Brady, entirely different story. He was engaged with Drew Henson in college so often, battling for the quarterback job at Michigan. And he was … well, I did not see this coming. But the people in that league intrigue me. Can you imagine how things have changed?
Think back to my favorite photo. The photo of Joe Namath before Super Bowl III, on the beach chair, getting interviewed down in Miami. [Musburger, a radio man from Chicago, and several sportswriters were in the photo.]
My wife, Arlene, and I went to that dinner a couple nights before the game where Joe guaranteed the win. Strange thing. Not Trumpian at all. Not emotional. Just matter-of-fact. I watched the game from a photo deck at the Orange Bowl. Right next to me was Howard Cosell.
MMQB: Assuming the Raiders move to Vegas, how do you think they’ll do?
Musburger: I think it will be an enormous success, especially for the fans of the teams that play the Raiders in Las Vegas. Every season, the road fans will plan trips to Vegas to see their teams. They will find a very, very warm reception in the community. It’s a growing community, very transient. It’s a natural. Vegas has grown so much beyond the gambling, and the NFL will find that out.
MMQB: Best coach of all time: Paul Brown, Vince Lombardi, Bill Belichick?
Musburger: Such a tough call. I really wasn’t around Paul Brown in his prime. Vince Lombardi, I was around him more than any of those three. Talk about how times changed: On Saturdays before Green Bay home games in the sixties, Red Smith and some of the New York columnists, and some of the rest of us coming in for the game from out of town, we would all go to Lombardi’s house for cocktails and hors d’ouevres. And he’d be there with a drink, as jovial and engaging and as wonderful a personality as you could imagine.
Vince Lombardi! Entertaining the media the day before the game! Somebody would ask him about his preparation, and he’d say, ‘Hay’s in the barn, young man. Nothing I can do.’ Now, Bill … Bill has mastered being a stoic. I ran into Bill down here in Jupiter last year, in a yogurt shop, with his lady friend. A social conversation with Bill lasts a minute, minute and a half, then you move down the road. But it’s so much harder to build teams now, obviously.
The free-agent era makes it much more difficult than what it used to be. I marvel at how Bill handles his roster. He gets rid of Richard Seymour and the name players. He did it this year too [with Chandler Jones and Jamie Collins] … I would say this: In the Super Bowl era, he is the best of all the coaches. The very best.”
*Bonus question: What do you think of Deflategate?
Musburger: This is what I tell people about that. Go get the play-by-play of the championship game with the Colts, when the Patriots supposedly tampered with the footballs, and the balls were changed out by the league at halftime. Look at Brady’s stats in the first half (11 for 21, 95 yards, one TD, one interception), and then look at his stats in the second half (12 of 14, 131 yards, two TDs, no interceptions). I shake my head still at how far the league went on that one.
* * *
The Falcons have five single-digit players, and all are named Matt:
2: Matt Ryan, QB
3: Matt Bryant, K
4: Matt Simms, QB (practice squad)
5: Matt Bosher, P
8: Matt Schaub, QB
Atlanta has no players between 9 and 99 named Matt.
As you’ll note, the three quarterbacks on the roster are all named Matt. Their position coach? Matt LaFleur. Which leads me to wonder when coach Dan Quinn ducks into the quarterback room and says, “Hey, Matt,” do four heads turn?
* * *
This week’s conversations: Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan and legendary Boston sports writer and columnist Bob Ryan.
• Shanahan on working with his father, Super Bowl-winning coach Mike Shanahan, in Washington:
“When I was younger I always told my dad that I wanted to coach with him one day. … I had to prove myself first, and once I had a chance to prove myself, that is when I wanted to coach with him. When he got fired from Denver, kind of unexpectedly, and he had that year off, I remember telling him—I was a coordinator at Houston at this time, and we had been third in the league and things were going really well in Houston, and my dad was taking the year off because he just got fired—and I remember telling him, 'Dad, when you get back, whether it is next year or 10 years from now, college or NFL.
I realize that you aren’t going to be an NFL coach forever, and it is important to me that we coach together someday, so whenever you get back, I am going to go with you if I can.’ He came back the next year, and it was Washington, and I went there and I would never take it back. If my dad had ever passed away and I had never coached with him before, that is something that would have been real hard on me. I wish it could have gone a little bit better.
But I think it was something I needed to do. Even though it was hard, it made me stronger, and I wouldn’t take it back for anything. My dad and I have always been close, and that was the first time I ever really got to see him as a coach, being a coach, and he is a hell of a coach and I don’t regret anything.”
• Ryan on how Tom Brady compares to the best basketball player he covered daily in Boston, Larry Bird:
“I'm going to tell you a Larry Bird story that I think you can apply to Brady. In 1983 the Celtics were swept in the playoffs by the Milwaukee Bucks, and it was the low point of that particular era. Bird had been sick and missed game one and never got off the mark. After game four in Milwaukee … I was there and I didn't have a deadline so I was able to hang around in the locker room after everyone had left. There were two of us left in the locker room with Larry Bird.
Larry said that he was taking this loss personally and he was going home and he was going to practice and he was going to get better and he was going to come back a better player and next year they were going to come back and win a championship. And he went home and they came back next year and he was a better player. He had a left-hand shot that he did not have before.
He had moves that he did not have before, and of course they made a big move to get Dennis Johnson, and they also changed coaches, but the point is, that is the attitude that I think Brady has always had as well. Never satisfied, he always feels that he can get better. He has the highest demands on his players, as you know with his receivers.
Do you agree with me, that it has got to be the hardest team in the league to be a wide receiver? If only because of the complexity of the offense and most specifically because of the demands of the quarterback.”
* * *
Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick notes of analysis from the off-week:
a. I know one thing about the Jets’ hire of Kevin Greene as outside linebackers coach: If any 2017 Jets linebacker doesn’t love football, Greene will snuff him out.
b. Still think the best landing spot for Tony Romo is the Texans.
c. I simply cannot see Bill O’Brien starting Brock Osweiler next fall.
d. East Carolina wideout Zay Jones jumped up some draft boards with his performance during Senior Bowl practices. He made some Beckham-like catches.
e. When I wrote the other day that Mike Tomlin needs to have a tougher hand with some players on his team, I wasn’t saying that Tomlin’s lost the locker room—not even close—but rather that every coach sometimes needs a reality check about disciplining his players.
f. This is going to be a difficult and fascinating year for the Hall of Fame selections and the 48 selectors when they gather Saturday morning in Houston to pick the class of 2017.
g. Of the 14 modern-era candidates not named Tomlinson, there’s not a single one who’s close to a lock, which leads me to think (probably dubiously) that it finally could be a year where we break the safety logjam (John Lynch, Brian Dawkins and, as a senior committee finalist, Kenny Easley) that has festered in Hall voting for so long.
h. This is also the week for the NFL awards to be announced (Saturday night in Houston), and, to refresh, I’ve got Matt Ryan as MVP and Bill Belichick as coach of the year; feel good about Ryan, not so good about Belichick’s chances.
i. It still seems like a huge reach to me for the league to be doing anything but a hand-slap to Seattle for the Richard Sherman injury-report investigation, seeing that Sherman never missed a game and played in the Pro Bowl last night.
j. The object of the report is to ferret out information about players who likely will miss a game or games—which Sherman never did.
2. I think, from some viewing of the Pro Bowl (for the first time in several years), one player impressed me: Tennessee defensive tackle Jurrell Casey. Few players play this game hard. Rare players play like it’s a real game. Casey is one of the latter.
3. I think, as I wake up this morning, I am still mind-boggled at the 49ers taking the risk of the year and hiring John Lynch as GM. Hiring a coach, 37 years old, who’s never been a head coach. Hiring a GM, 45, who’s never worked in personnel. Well, Jed York wanted to buy a lottery ticket and shoot for the moon … he’s done that.
4. I think the Colts hired a very good man in Chris Ballard as GM. Always wondered why he never got a job before Jim Irsay hired him this weekend. Come to find out Ballard withdrew from some, and wanted to stay in the Midwest for family reasons, and this is the perfect shot for him. What GM who wants to win a Super Bowl wouldn’t want to have Andrew Luck as the baseline player to start?
Now Ballard is going to have to convince some great scouts—and he is very well-connected in the scouting business—to come help him build a great team around Luck. Immediately, he’s going to have to build an offensive line. There’s a fire alarm there, because Luck is the most important player on this team, and the line is D quality at best.
5. I think this is your DVR Alert of the Week: a one-hour special Thursday night at 10:30 p.m. ET on the life and broadcasting times of ESPN's Chris Berman ... including an interview with Bill Clinton, who was in in the booth when Berman and Buck Martinez had the call on Cal Ripken's Ironman game. Cool hour of TV, I'm sure. Marv Levy, Dan Patrick and Bill Belichick on the show too.
6. I owe Brent Musburger a debt of gratitude. In the mid-’90s I did NFL news updates at halftime of the Monday night game for two seasons for ABC. The first time I ever walked into the studio, on a September Monday night in 1994, I met Brent and told him I’d never done TV before. (Seems like something significant, but who I am to divine what’s important about television?) Brent being the coolest cucumber in the room, he said, “Kid, don’t worry. I’m gonna make you look good.”
And for two seasons, every time we were together, he’d ask me about the news of the day, and how we wanted to present it, and he’d say things like, “What if I set you up like this?” Sometimes we’d talk about stories and he’d tell me what would play best for a Monday night audience. In 1995, Deion Sanders, one of the game’s biggest stars, said he’d talk to me after undergoing ankle surgery in Coral Gables, Fla., and he wasn’t totally lucid for the interview; he was still slightly anesthetized, but halftime was approaching, so we had a choice to make.
Brent and the producers found a good sound bite that was Lucid Deion, and we got a good scoop. Brent knew news, and he knew you don’t embarrass people who’d gone the extra mile to do an interview with you.
7. I think I have a feeling Tom Brady Sr., won’t be doing many interviews in Houston this week. But Sunday night? After the game? All bets will be off.
8. I think Tim Graham and the Buffalo Newsare to be congratulated for their work in not letting the sad saga of concussion-ravaged kicker Bjorn Nittmo go away quietly. Graham has now written twice at length about the pain Nittmo suffered, and then inflicted on his family as he attempted to fade into darkness himself. Great piece by Graham on Saturday.
9. I think I could not be more proud of The MMQBthis week, for:
a. Emily Kaplan’s incisive and news-breaking story in which Erin Andrews opens up on the stalking scandal and her cervical cancer diagnosis.
b. Tim Rohan, on how close the Patriots’ dynasty actually came to taking place in Hartford, not Foxboro.
c. Jenny Vrentas, on the intriguing roots of Matt Ryan, and how he’s never forgotten where he’s from.
d. Robert Klemko, with an insightful story about the Patriots getting discounts from players they sign because they want to play for the Patriots so much.
e. Andy Benoit with some insight on what kind of defensive game plan to expect from the Patriots against Atlanta’s explosiveness.
f. Albert Breer with the special instructor Matt Ryan and Tom Brady both used, quietly, to get better in the offseason.
g. Photographer/videographer John DePetro and Road To Houston tour boss Kalyn Kahler, on finding real Falcons in north Georgia, and by golly, in downtown Atlanta.
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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/01/30/robert-kraft-patriots-nfl-super-bowl-51-falcons-peter-king
Robert Kraft Made a ‘Mistake’ and Turned It Into a Dynasty
The story of how the Pats owner ignored some bad advice to kick-start an era of NFL dominance. Plus why the 49ers hired John Lynch to be GM, a TV legend signs off and more from Houston as Super Bowl week begins
by Peter King
Robert Kraft/Photo: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
There is only one word to describe what happened Sunday night, on Super Bowl Week eve: wow. The 49ers hired Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist John Lynch to be their general manager, shocking the football world, as the partner for likely new Niners coach Kyle Shanahan.
Well, maybe one other word: risky. “Neither of those guys are afraid of failure, and I’m not either,” club CEO Jed York told me as the clock neared midnight Sunday. Heck of a story, to be told after another story, a truly historic one.
NEW YORK — “Sweetheart,” New England owner Robert Kraft said to me the other day, in his 11th-floor apartment with the view of all views of Central Park, “I’ve got a little factoid for you this week.”
The owner of the Super Bowl-bound Patriots had a big smile when he said it. Seems that a few days earlier, the night before the AFC Championship Game, Kraft had a small dinner party at his home in the posh Boston suburb of Brookline. A video was shown. Three young defensive players—Elandon Roberts, Vincent Valentine and Malcom Brown—came into view and said in unison, “Mr. Kraft! We weren’t born when you bought the team!” He purchased the Patriots in January 1994; they were born in the next three months.
“Twenty-three seasons,” Kraft mused. “Nineteen years in the playoffs. Two years under .500. Twelve conference championship games. Eight Super Bowls. I feel pretty proud.”
Kraft is right in pointing out this extended run of greatness, because it’s unlike any in team sports over the past quarter-century. To make it happen—to make the Patriots the kind of dominant franchise that is so counter to every tenet of pro football, to send the Patriots to the favorite’s role in another Super Bowl this week—the most important thing Kraft did happened nearly two decades ago.
It was the kind of against-the-grain move that will go down in football history as one of the smartest decisions an owner has made.
Against the grain might be putting it mildly.
In fact, one team owner, when Kraft was about to make this momentous decision, advised against it. Kraft remembers this owner’s exact words.
“He said if I did it, I’d be making the biggest mistake of my life,” Kraft said, his voice taking an ominous tone.
The owner: Art Modell of the Baltimore Ravens.
The looming catastrophe: hiring Bill Belichick.
* * *
So there’s a lot going on this United States this morning, and I don’t mean the start of Super Bowl week in Houston. But since this is (mostly) a football column, let’s get to the nuts and bolts of these strangers, Atlanta and New England, meeting in Super Bowl 51. Namely:
• Will the Vengeance-Thy-Name-is-Patriots and Roger Goodell co-exist without fisticuffs this week? (They will.)
• Will Patriots corner Malcolm Butler shadow all-world Julio Jones on Sunday? (I doubt it.)
• Will the Falcons be able to win if Jones is shut down? (The numbers say: without a doubt, yes.)
• Will Tom Brady become the winningest quarterback in the Super Bowl era? (Give me a couple of days to ruminate on that one.)
• And is this the year (with voting looming Saturday) for Terrell Davis to make the Hall of Fame? Or Kurt Warner? Or both, in a class devoid of automatics outside (probably) of LaDainian Tomlinson? (It’s clearly the best shot yet for both.)
We start high above Central Park, 11 afternoons before the Super Bowl. Kraft ducked into the other room at one point to speak with Tom Brady. But for most of two hours on this unseasonably warm January afternoon, the Patriots’ owner reflected on the franchise of our time—hated by many, envied by 31 owners, beloved by six states and the president of the United States (who called Kraft with congratulations 24 hours after the AFC Championship rout of the Steelers), and respected by those who understand how hard it is to post 16 straight winning National Football League seasons.
My favorite Kraft line was about money. “The key to success in business, and the key to life, really, is creating aligned interests with smart people,” he said. “Winning football games has been more important to me than making money. Winning is what turns me on. Money is pretty good, but a shroud has no pockets.”
My favorite Kraft story was about the Belichick hire.
It happened 17 years ago this month, the drama that caused a rift between Belichick and his mentor, Bill Parcells; that caused Belichick to resign as the coach of the Jets within two days of assuming the position; that caused Belichick to sue the NFL and the Jets for not allowing him to coach elsewhere; that prevented Dom Capers from being the coach of the 2000 New England Patriots; and that caused bitter rivals (the Jets and Patriots) to exchange Belichick and five draft choices in the biggest trade for a coach in history.
In short: Belichick was an assistant on Parcells’ Jets staff, and his contract (buttressed by a $1 million bonus from then-owner Leon Hess) called for him to succeed Parcells when Parcells stepped down as coach. Which happened on the night of Jan. 2, 2000, after the Jets finished the 1999 season with a win over Seattle. Parcells’ resignation was announced the following day (he would remain director of football operations).
The Patriots filed a request with the league on the morning of Jan. 3 to interview Belichick for their vacant coaching job (after firing Pete Carroll), but were denied, because the clause in Belichick’s contract tied him to the Jets. The next day Belichick quit due to uncertainty surrounding the sale of the team to Woody Johnson (smart move) and his distaste for non-football-man president Steve Gutman.
The Jets hired Al Groh to coach the team. But they wouldn’t let Belichick out of his deal. The battles between the two teams, involving commissioner Paul Tagliabue and a federal court as well, lasted three weeks.
“To start,” Kraft said, “you need to understand we were without a coach for almost a month, and the other coaches had been hired around the league, and they had hired coaching staffs, and I was getting killed for it. Killed. The league office thought I was crazy for wanting Bill. Everybody in there—George Young, Joe Browne, people at the highest level of the league. It was toxic.
Nobody thought it was a good idea. I was getting killed by the media in Boston. Bill had one winning year in five seasons in Cleveland. And then I got sent video tapes of a couple of his press conferences in Cleveland.”
Proof, he saw, of Belichick’s communication skills. Or lack thereof.
“So after all that,” I said, “were you a little scared of hiring him?”
“Of course!” he said. “How could I not be? I watched those tapes!”
But Kraft remembered a couple of things. In 1996, after he was fired by Cleveland, Belichick was on the market, and Parcells lobbied for Kraft to hire him; Kraft thought Belichick, if he didn’t go to New England, would have ended up coaching on Miami’s staff in 1996. So Kraft okayed the hire, and the Patriots went to the Super Bowl that season, with Belichick’s secondary a big reason.
“I asked the defensive backs, ‘What has Bill [Belichick] brought?’ And they said he always put them in the right position to make plays.’ When Parcells left after the Super Bowl, we decided to clean house, and I met with Bill [Belichick]. Now, we had just started this era of the salary cap a couple years earlier, and to understand the salary cap was to understand value.
The one thing he said to me when he left was, ‘You should sign Troy Brown. Great value there.’ I remembered that. Here was a guy on the other side of the ball, and Bill knew how important he was. And he turned out to be right.”
With the case hung up in court, and the Jets knowing they’d get nothing if they hung on to Belichick for a season, Parcells called Kraft on the night of Jan. 26. The two men hadn’t spoken in three years, since a bitter parting after the Super Bowl season of 1996.
“My [secretary], one night, says to me, ‘Someone saying he’s Darth Vader is on the phone. Do you know who that is?’” Kraft said.
“Oh, I knew who that was.”
Said Parcells: “He was getting ready to hire Capers. I just said to him, ‘I want a 1 [a first-round pick] and something else.’ It really wasn’t that hard.”
The Patriots sent a first-round pick in 2000 and fourth-round and seventh-round picks in 2001 to the Jets for the rights to Belichick, plus a fifth-round pick in 2001 and a seventh-round pick in 2002. (None of the picks mattered but for longtime serviceable defensive lineman Shaun Ellis, taken with that first-rounder by the Jets.)
“He could have held me up for more,” Kraft said.
“I called Bill the next morning,” Parcells said. “I told him to call Kraft. I told him he should make sure to get at least four years in his contract.”
Belichick’s New England deal was announced less than 24 hours after Darth Vader’s phone call.
“I always felt we had a little bit of simpatico,” Kraft said. “It’s like a woman. A spouse. What’s right for me might not be right for some other man. In a football sense, he had product knowledge. Troy Brown. I listened. I remembered. Honestly, it was like when I bought the team. I thought I was going to pay $115 million, maybe $118, $120.
I ended up paying $172 million, the most for a team ever at that time. I broke every rule in business when I did that. But you know why I did it? It’s my hometown team. I loved that team. I knew I’d never get another chance to buy it. So with the coach, I wanted Belichick. I was getting what I wanted if I got him. I’m not thinking about the next year or two. I’m thinking about three years, five years, 10 years. He was going to be with us for a long time.”
Now he has been. And Kraft has no regrets. Four Lombardi Trophies, a few spats … and no regrets. You hear about differences inside the upper echelon of the Patriots, the kind of differences that happen when strong-willed successful people disagree. But the thing about the Patriots is, the disagreements rarely reach the front page of the Globe.
“We’re like a family,” Kraft said. “When we disagree, we disagree in private. In all my businesses, we do not tolerate division from within.”
Now for the obvious question: Won’t this one mean more?
For so many reasons, but mostly because of the war between the NFL and the Patriots over Deflategate and the Tom Brady suspension to start this year, and because of Kraft. He’s an extremely loyal league guy, but got slapped down with such an onerous sanction: a four-game suspension for his quarterback, the loss of first-round and fourth-round draft choices for the team and a $1 million fine.
“Nothing, to me, will ever top the first [Super Bowl win],” Kraft said of the 20-17 upset of the Rams that capped the 2001 season. “It’s right after 9/11. We’re red, white and blue. The Patriots. The underdog. So many people pulling for us. We’d waited 42 years for it.
“This year, to me, is life. When you want something so badly, you work for it and go through the hard times. You persevere. Our organization hasn’t made excuses. What happened was unfortunate. I don’t think it was fair, the league’s penalty on us. But it is what it is. In a way, our fan base has bonded even more with us through the hard times.
“I want Roger [Goodell] to do the right thing for the league, obviously. In this case, I don’t think he did that. He got bad advice from the people around him, and the league didn’t handle it well. But I’ve compartmentalized it. Now we try to win the biggest game of the year.”
“But,” I said, “what would it be like to stand up on the podium after the game and have Roger hand you the Lombardi Trophy?”
Pause. Kraft looked over my shoulder, out the window, toward Central Park.
“It’d be sweet.”
* * *
The Very Interesting Shanahan-Lynch Pairing
John Lynch/Photo: Helen H. Richardson/Getty Images
Sometimes, a story that seems so preposterous when you first hear it makes more sense the longer you digest it. A preface: I’ve always thought an arranged marriage between a coach and a GM is stupid. On very rare occasions (Pete Carroll-John Schneider) it works. Most often (Josh McDaniels-Brian Xanders, Chip Kelly-Howie Roseman, Rex Ryan-John Idzik, Rex Ryan-Doug Whaley, etc.) it does not.
That’s why it seemed odd that the 49ers would place Kyle Shanahan—their coach one week from today—in a room with ace Vikings scout George Paton and then with ace Cardinals scout Terry McDonough, and then smoke would come out of the chimney and Shanahan would say about one of them: “That’s it! That’s my GM!”
It’s just not a smart way to form a partnership. So when Adam Schefter of ESPN reported that John Lynch had contacted Shanahan last week and told him he was interested in leaving TV to be a GM, and Shanahan returned the interest, the story began to make sense.
Lynch spent Thursday night with Jed York in the Bay Area, then flew to Atlanta and had four more interviewing hours with York, and then York saw him debriefed by Shanahan in an Atlanta hotel room … that’s when York thought this was real, and possible.
After going through the Shanahan sessions with Paton on Friday night and then McDonough on Saturday morning, York thought the Lynch fit was best. As did Shanahan.
Shanahan is 37. Lynch is 45. Lynch has watched John Elway go from inexperienced former star player to Super Bowl champion GM. They are friends. Lynch has enjoyed his Fox analyst work, but I am told he longed for something more, something with more substance.
Now he’ll have to figure out whom to hire and trust as his football czars in San Francisco—as Elway has, with Tom Heckert and Matt Russell in Denver. Maybe it’ll be former Tampa Bay GM Mark Dominik, or incumbent personnel man Tom Gamble in San Francisco. But Lynch is going to need help. Lots of it.
The reason why I’m not down on it? I know Lynch. He knows his limitations. He knows he needs a couple of great scouts to help him. Lots of people will recall the last Fox analyst to ascend to the throne of an NFL team without personnel training—Matt Millen in Detroit in 2001—and how miserably he failed.
This may be the same thing. If Lynch doesn’t surround himself with strong personnel people, it will be the same thing. If Lynch and Shanahan don’t find a long-term quarterback, regardless of their long contracts, they will fail in their quest to lead the 49ers out of the wilderness.
“Nothing is guaranteed,” York said late Sunday night. (He also said, “I need some sleep.”) “But so many opportunities are missed in the NFL because people don’t want to do something different. We’re okay with that, because I am confident in Kyle and John. John has watched John Elway, and how he’s built a team in Denver.
As easy as it is to say he hasn’t built a team yet—I get that—I talk to Kyle, and he says John is the most prepared of all the TV [people] he meets in the production meetings before games. We understand we’ll have to live with growing pains, but I’m willing to do that because I believe the upside with both of them is so great.”
It all sounds good—the enlightened GM, the overly bright coach—but nothing will matter until one of them picks the right quarterback to help rebuild the Niners. Knowing each man the way I do, I expect they both know it.
* * *
Bon Voyage, Brent Musburger
Brent Musberger/Photo: Icon Sportswire/Getty Images
It’s a shame that, except for two years in the mid-’90s when he hosted a halftime segment on ABC’s “Monday Night Football,” Brent Musburger hasn’t worked the NFL for a quarter-century. He was Chris Berman before Berman, the iconic host of the iconic studio show “The NFL Today,” which was appointment viewing before and during football games until CBS parted ways with Musburger in 1990.
He’s 77 now, and has been a fixture on ESPN college games for years, and he is retiring now to move to Las Vegas to work with a new sports betting network; the Las Vegas Review-Journalreported he’ll host an afternoon talk show on sports and gambling on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. His final game on ESPN is Tuesday night with Jay Bilas: Georgia at Kentucky.
“I always knew I would head back out west one day, closer to our two boys in Montana,” Musburger told me Friday. “[Sports gambling] is a growth industry, and with the Trump administration in office, it might be a chance it grows beyond the Nevada borders. People like the action, and those in the NFL who are honest realize how much the gaming factor has played into the growth of the league.”
Three questions for Musburger, from his home in Jupiter, Fla. (he’ll soon move to Nevada), yield this insight: He might not have been working football over the years, but he sure knows a lot about it. (More about my personal feelings on Musburger in Ten Things I Think I Think.)
MMQB: How much have you missed working the NFL?
Musburger: Here is what I miss. Things like this: If you give Mr. Belichick an extra week, he will take one thing away from the Falcons. Just watching the games and watching the Patriots, you learn what he does so well and why he’s such a great coach. Also: How is the money flowing? What are the bettors saying about this game? I have fun with the games, and look forward to all of them.
I miss the NFL a lot. This era of NFL players I covered in college. Matt Ryan, at Boston College … one of the most intelligent players I dealt with. Tom Brady, entirely different story. He was engaged with Drew Henson in college so often, battling for the quarterback job at Michigan. And he was … well, I did not see this coming. But the people in that league intrigue me. Can you imagine how things have changed?
Think back to my favorite photo. The photo of Joe Namath before Super Bowl III, on the beach chair, getting interviewed down in Miami. [Musburger, a radio man from Chicago, and several sportswriters were in the photo.]
My wife, Arlene, and I went to that dinner a couple nights before the game where Joe guaranteed the win. Strange thing. Not Trumpian at all. Not emotional. Just matter-of-fact. I watched the game from a photo deck at the Orange Bowl. Right next to me was Howard Cosell.
MMQB: Assuming the Raiders move to Vegas, how do you think they’ll do?
Musburger: I think it will be an enormous success, especially for the fans of the teams that play the Raiders in Las Vegas. Every season, the road fans will plan trips to Vegas to see their teams. They will find a very, very warm reception in the community. It’s a growing community, very transient. It’s a natural. Vegas has grown so much beyond the gambling, and the NFL will find that out.
MMQB: Best coach of all time: Paul Brown, Vince Lombardi, Bill Belichick?
Musburger: Such a tough call. I really wasn’t around Paul Brown in his prime. Vince Lombardi, I was around him more than any of those three. Talk about how times changed: On Saturdays before Green Bay home games in the sixties, Red Smith and some of the New York columnists, and some of the rest of us coming in for the game from out of town, we would all go to Lombardi’s house for cocktails and hors d’ouevres. And he’d be there with a drink, as jovial and engaging and as wonderful a personality as you could imagine.
Vince Lombardi! Entertaining the media the day before the game! Somebody would ask him about his preparation, and he’d say, ‘Hay’s in the barn, young man. Nothing I can do.’ Now, Bill … Bill has mastered being a stoic. I ran into Bill down here in Jupiter last year, in a yogurt shop, with his lady friend. A social conversation with Bill lasts a minute, minute and a half, then you move down the road. But it’s so much harder to build teams now, obviously.
The free-agent era makes it much more difficult than what it used to be. I marvel at how Bill handles his roster. He gets rid of Richard Seymour and the name players. He did it this year too [with Chandler Jones and Jamie Collins] … I would say this: In the Super Bowl era, he is the best of all the coaches. The very best.”
*Bonus question: What do you think of Deflategate?
Musburger: This is what I tell people about that. Go get the play-by-play of the championship game with the Colts, when the Patriots supposedly tampered with the footballs, and the balls were changed out by the league at halftime. Look at Brady’s stats in the first half (11 for 21, 95 yards, one TD, one interception), and then look at his stats in the second half (12 of 14, 131 yards, two TDs, no interceptions). I shake my head still at how far the league went on that one.
* * *
The Falcons have five single-digit players, and all are named Matt:
2: Matt Ryan, QB
3: Matt Bryant, K
4: Matt Simms, QB (practice squad)
5: Matt Bosher, P
8: Matt Schaub, QB
Atlanta has no players between 9 and 99 named Matt.
As you’ll note, the three quarterbacks on the roster are all named Matt. Their position coach? Matt LaFleur. Which leads me to wonder when coach Dan Quinn ducks into the quarterback room and says, “Hey, Matt,” do four heads turn?
* * *
This week’s conversations: Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan and legendary Boston sports writer and columnist Bob Ryan.
• Shanahan on working with his father, Super Bowl-winning coach Mike Shanahan, in Washington:
“When I was younger I always told my dad that I wanted to coach with him one day. … I had to prove myself first, and once I had a chance to prove myself, that is when I wanted to coach with him. When he got fired from Denver, kind of unexpectedly, and he had that year off, I remember telling him—I was a coordinator at Houston at this time, and we had been third in the league and things were going really well in Houston, and my dad was taking the year off because he just got fired—and I remember telling him, 'Dad, when you get back, whether it is next year or 10 years from now, college or NFL.
I realize that you aren’t going to be an NFL coach forever, and it is important to me that we coach together someday, so whenever you get back, I am going to go with you if I can.’ He came back the next year, and it was Washington, and I went there and I would never take it back. If my dad had ever passed away and I had never coached with him before, that is something that would have been real hard on me. I wish it could have gone a little bit better.
But I think it was something I needed to do. Even though it was hard, it made me stronger, and I wouldn’t take it back for anything. My dad and I have always been close, and that was the first time I ever really got to see him as a coach, being a coach, and he is a hell of a coach and I don’t regret anything.”
• Ryan on how Tom Brady compares to the best basketball player he covered daily in Boston, Larry Bird:
“I'm going to tell you a Larry Bird story that I think you can apply to Brady. In 1983 the Celtics were swept in the playoffs by the Milwaukee Bucks, and it was the low point of that particular era. Bird had been sick and missed game one and never got off the mark. After game four in Milwaukee … I was there and I didn't have a deadline so I was able to hang around in the locker room after everyone had left. There were two of us left in the locker room with Larry Bird.
Larry said that he was taking this loss personally and he was going home and he was going to practice and he was going to get better and he was going to come back a better player and next year they were going to come back and win a championship. And he went home and they came back next year and he was a better player. He had a left-hand shot that he did not have before.
He had moves that he did not have before, and of course they made a big move to get Dennis Johnson, and they also changed coaches, but the point is, that is the attitude that I think Brady has always had as well. Never satisfied, he always feels that he can get better. He has the highest demands on his players, as you know with his receivers.
Do you agree with me, that it has got to be the hardest team in the league to be a wide receiver? If only because of the complexity of the offense and most specifically because of the demands of the quarterback.”
* * *
Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick notes of analysis from the off-week:
a. I know one thing about the Jets’ hire of Kevin Greene as outside linebackers coach: If any 2017 Jets linebacker doesn’t love football, Greene will snuff him out.
b. Still think the best landing spot for Tony Romo is the Texans.
c. I simply cannot see Bill O’Brien starting Brock Osweiler next fall.
d. East Carolina wideout Zay Jones jumped up some draft boards with his performance during Senior Bowl practices. He made some Beckham-like catches.
e. When I wrote the other day that Mike Tomlin needs to have a tougher hand with some players on his team, I wasn’t saying that Tomlin’s lost the locker room—not even close—but rather that every coach sometimes needs a reality check about disciplining his players.
f. This is going to be a difficult and fascinating year for the Hall of Fame selections and the 48 selectors when they gather Saturday morning in Houston to pick the class of 2017.
g. Of the 14 modern-era candidates not named Tomlinson, there’s not a single one who’s close to a lock, which leads me to think (probably dubiously) that it finally could be a year where we break the safety logjam (John Lynch, Brian Dawkins and, as a senior committee finalist, Kenny Easley) that has festered in Hall voting for so long.
h. This is also the week for the NFL awards to be announced (Saturday night in Houston), and, to refresh, I’ve got Matt Ryan as MVP and Bill Belichick as coach of the year; feel good about Ryan, not so good about Belichick’s chances.
i. It still seems like a huge reach to me for the league to be doing anything but a hand-slap to Seattle for the Richard Sherman injury-report investigation, seeing that Sherman never missed a game and played in the Pro Bowl last night.
j. The object of the report is to ferret out information about players who likely will miss a game or games—which Sherman never did.
2. I think, from some viewing of the Pro Bowl (for the first time in several years), one player impressed me: Tennessee defensive tackle Jurrell Casey. Few players play this game hard. Rare players play like it’s a real game. Casey is one of the latter.
3. I think, as I wake up this morning, I am still mind-boggled at the 49ers taking the risk of the year and hiring John Lynch as GM. Hiring a coach, 37 years old, who’s never been a head coach. Hiring a GM, 45, who’s never worked in personnel. Well, Jed York wanted to buy a lottery ticket and shoot for the moon … he’s done that.
4. I think the Colts hired a very good man in Chris Ballard as GM. Always wondered why he never got a job before Jim Irsay hired him this weekend. Come to find out Ballard withdrew from some, and wanted to stay in the Midwest for family reasons, and this is the perfect shot for him. What GM who wants to win a Super Bowl wouldn’t want to have Andrew Luck as the baseline player to start?
Now Ballard is going to have to convince some great scouts—and he is very well-connected in the scouting business—to come help him build a great team around Luck. Immediately, he’s going to have to build an offensive line. There’s a fire alarm there, because Luck is the most important player on this team, and the line is D quality at best.
5. I think this is your DVR Alert of the Week: a one-hour special Thursday night at 10:30 p.m. ET on the life and broadcasting times of ESPN's Chris Berman ... including an interview with Bill Clinton, who was in in the booth when Berman and Buck Martinez had the call on Cal Ripken's Ironman game. Cool hour of TV, I'm sure. Marv Levy, Dan Patrick and Bill Belichick on the show too.
6. I owe Brent Musburger a debt of gratitude. In the mid-’90s I did NFL news updates at halftime of the Monday night game for two seasons for ABC. The first time I ever walked into the studio, on a September Monday night in 1994, I met Brent and told him I’d never done TV before. (Seems like something significant, but who I am to divine what’s important about television?) Brent being the coolest cucumber in the room, he said, “Kid, don’t worry. I’m gonna make you look good.”
And for two seasons, every time we were together, he’d ask me about the news of the day, and how we wanted to present it, and he’d say things like, “What if I set you up like this?” Sometimes we’d talk about stories and he’d tell me what would play best for a Monday night audience. In 1995, Deion Sanders, one of the game’s biggest stars, said he’d talk to me after undergoing ankle surgery in Coral Gables, Fla., and he wasn’t totally lucid for the interview; he was still slightly anesthetized, but halftime was approaching, so we had a choice to make.
Brent and the producers found a good sound bite that was Lucid Deion, and we got a good scoop. Brent knew news, and he knew you don’t embarrass people who’d gone the extra mile to do an interview with you.
7. I think I have a feeling Tom Brady Sr., won’t be doing many interviews in Houston this week. But Sunday night? After the game? All bets will be off.
8. I think Tim Graham and the Buffalo Newsare to be congratulated for their work in not letting the sad saga of concussion-ravaged kicker Bjorn Nittmo go away quietly. Graham has now written twice at length about the pain Nittmo suffered, and then inflicted on his family as he attempted to fade into darkness himself. Great piece by Graham on Saturday.
9. I think I could not be more proud of The MMQBthis week, for:
a. Emily Kaplan’s incisive and news-breaking story in which Erin Andrews opens up on the stalking scandal and her cervical cancer diagnosis.
b. Tim Rohan, on how close the Patriots’ dynasty actually came to taking place in Hartford, not Foxboro.
c. Jenny Vrentas, on the intriguing roots of Matt Ryan, and how he’s never forgotten where he’s from.
d. Robert Klemko, with an insightful story about the Patriots getting discounts from players they sign because they want to play for the Patriots so much.
e. Andy Benoit with some insight on what kind of defensive game plan to expect from the Patriots against Atlanta’s explosiveness.
f. Albert Breer with the special instructor Matt Ryan and Tom Brady both used, quietly, to get better in the offseason.
g. Photographer/videographer John DePetro and Road To Houston tour boss Kalyn Kahler, on finding real Falcons in north Georgia, and by golly, in downtown Atlanta.