During a Thursday press conference, Patriots owner Robert Kraft addressed the fact that his team has spent less than any NFL team on players over the past decade according to Phil Perry of NBCSportsBoston.com.
“I know there’s a perception that we have held back on spending,” Kraft told the group of reporters. “Let me just say, for our fans, that’s just not true. Look, we were blessed to have a coach in our system who was a great coach and also understood value. He ran a tight ship. . . . [O]ur coaches have always had the ability to spend at whatever level they wanted. I think Bill [Belichick] was always thinking about the future and really understood value. But we never held back with any of the coaches we’ve had over the last 30 years.”
Kraft apparently wants the world to know that any decisions about spending were made by Belichick, not him. “I can assure our fans that spending will never be held back or the reason that we don’t sign players,” Kraft added. “I’ve actually tried to get us to sign players who maybe would’ve cost more but wouldn’t have been the right players or value. So, we always leave that to the people we assign the responsibility to.”
“They’ve been able to get whatever they want,” Kraft said of the team’s football operations. “If cash spending became an issue for our family, and we couldn’t do it, then I would sell the team. Winning football games, after my family, is the most important thing in my life. Whatever we can do to help make that happen, we’re going to do.”
And Kraft made the justifiable point that the Patriots approach to spending has not hampered his team's success. “I think people should just look at our record. We’re privileged over the last 30 years to have the best win-loss record of any team in sports. We went to 10 Super Bowls. There are teams that haven’t gone to one.”
It will be interesting to see if the Patriots spending habits change significantly now that the Belichick era is over. Considering that the team badly needs an infusion of talent at virtually every position, it should be an interesting offseason.