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As of late, New England Patriots long-time owner Robert Kraft is reflecting upon the team’s dynasty run. Recently, Kraft fondly remembered the 28-3 comeback against the Atlanta Falcons in the 2017 Super Bowl.
Now he is looking back on the team’s improbable run in the early 2000s with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. Upon reflection, Kraft slightly diminished Brady when talking about the effort to snatch up Belichick as the head coach, per Jordy McElroy of the Patriots Wire.
During an appearance on the Dudes on Dudes podcast, Kraft said the Patriots took a big risk by trading draft picks to acquire Belichick.
“Getting Bill Belichick to come to the Patriots,” he said, “I gave up a No. 1 draft pick for a coach who had only won a little over 40 percent of his games in 1999. It was a big risk, and I got hammered in the Boston media. But I think we did okay.”
In 2000, the Patriots traded a few draft picks to the New York Jets. Altogether, they traded a first-round pick in the 2000 NFL draft (16th overall), a fourth-round pick in 2001, and a seventh-round pick in 2001.
As for Belichick, he was the head coach for the Cleveland Browns from 1991 to 1995. Then he became an assistant coach for the New York Giants and Jets.
Also in 2000, the Patriots selected Tom Brady as the No. 6 pick in the draft out of the University of Michigan. The rest is history as the Patriots went on to win six Super Bowls (2002, 2004, 2005, 2015, 2017, 2019).
On the surface, it appeared that the trifecta of Patriots legends (Kraft, Belichick, and Brady) had a long, tremendously successful run. But Belichick conventionally left Kraft out of his recent book, The Art of Winning.
Kraft said he fired Belichick in 2023, but Belichick said that he left under mutual agreement. Also, tensions began to rise between Belichick and Brady, with Kraft serving as the mediator. Later on, Brady left for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with whom he won a Super Bowl in 2021.
In a way, they were what Billy Martin, George Steinbrenner, and Reggie Jackson were to the New York Yankees in the late 1970s—three tremendous egos where there wasn’t enough room for all of them.
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