It seems, despite outward appearances, that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft harbored reservations about the job being done by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell well before Goodell took the Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady to task for the alleged deflation of footballs to a level below that which the league deems to be legal. According to a wide-ranging report published on Tuesday by Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr. of ESPN, delving deeply into the 2007 Spygate scandal and the Pats alleged history of cheating, while Kraft may have been stating publicly that Goodell was doing an "excellent" job, even as the Ray Rice issue began to fester and questions of Goodell's performance and overall competency began to swirl, to those around him Kraft had become "deeply concerned" with the commissioner's actions.
"Roger's been very disappointing in the way he has handled this," Kraft told a friend last year, via ESPN in reference to Goodell's handling of the Rice situation. "And I'm not alone in feeling like that."
There's no denying that while Goodell has overseen a period of explosive economic growth for the league, the past year has been difficult and potentially very worrisome for the league's owners. The increasingly negative publicity toward the league reached a crescendo with Goodell's mishandling of the Rice situation. Some owners felt it was cause for dismissal, per Wickersham and Van Natta's report, but Kraft remained staunch in his defense of Goodell - at least outwardly - but allegedly seethed at this decision-making and a perceived imcompetence displayed by the league's executives, including NFL general counsel Jeffrey Pash.
"Roger's people don't have a f---ing clue as to what they are doing," Kraft told his friend, according to ESPN.
Just prior to this past Thanksgiving, Kraft attended a fundraising dinner at which he confided to a friend that "Roger is on very thin ice." Again though, Kraft urged patience amongst owners, suggesting they wait until "after the Super Bowl" to address Goodell's performance.
Then, the Deflategate story broke.
