New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft may have initially come out in vehement, long-winded defense of his future surefire first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback, Tom Brady, in the wake of the Deflategate scandal and the findings of the Wells Report, but according to the latest report, Brady's own head coach, Bill Belichick, may not share the same feeling of righteous indignance and even Kraft's thinking on the matter may be changing.
Per Ron Borges of Town Fair Tire Sports Tonight, sources revealed to him that Belichick never jumped to defend Brady after the initial football deflation issue was raised because the hard-nosed head coach never, in fact, believed Brady's side of the story.
"Belichick never believed his story, from what I was told," said Borges, via CSNNE.com. "Because they all know. Why do you think all those retired quarterbacks, the Troy Aikmans of the world -- Troy Aikman is about as nice a guy as I've ever met in football -- nobody's backed [Brady]. Nobody, not a single guy. Why do you think that is? Because they hate Brady? No. Because they're not stupid. They know nothing's done with those balls that the quarterback doesn't want done."
Borges comments came after Michael Felger, also appearing on Sports Tonight, suggested that perhaps the reason for Kraft's recent decision not to fight the other punishments handed to the Pats by the league - a $1 million fine and the loss of two draft picks, one a first-rounder - beyond Brady's suspension, was a growing belief on Kraft and Belichick's part that Brady may not have been entirely honest with them.
"I'm embarrassed to talk about the amount of time I've put into this compared to the other important challenge in front of us," Belichick said during a press conference the Saturday after the Patriots defeated the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship game - the game from which the entire Deflategate scandal emanated - via USAToday.com. "I'm not a scientist, not an expert in footballs ... I'm just telling you what I know. At no time was there any intent whatsoever to try to compromise the integrity of the game. Quite the opposite. We feel we followed the rules of the game to the letter in our preparation."
Despite Belichick's assertion then that the team had "followed every rule, to the letter," if Borges' report is correct, Belichick's - and Kraft's - thinking may have been swayed by the mounting evidence discovered by Ted Wells including highly questionable text messages between Brady, Jim McNally and John Jastremski and, presumably, his own conversations with Brady.
