The satisfaction of realizing his lifelong dream - first, to own the Patriots, then to bring a championship home to New England, where he has lived all of his life - is just as weighty as he expected.
His football team has completed the most unbelievable season in Boston sports history, surpassing the Impossible Dream Red Sox for one simple reason: his club won it all, and ended a 16-year drought of ultimate sports celebration in our fair city.
Kraft certainly did his part to capture the Super Bowl trophy, as light as it may be. He built a new state-of-the-art stadium, with millions of dollars of his personal wealth. He hired Bill Belichick, at the cost of a first-round draft pick, then sat back and seethed as the doubters dubbed him a fool for paying so much for a head coach so unproven.
Yet Kraft had connected with Belichick during the disappointing flight home from the team’s last trip to the Super Bowl, in 1997, when the Packers bullied his Patriots, and his coach, Bill Parcells, skipped town. Ask Kraft what he regrets most, and it would probably be that he didn’t give Belichick the head job right then and there, choosing instead to give Pete Carroll a shot at making New England football history.
’’I always had a feeling about him,’’ Kraft said. ‘’One of the reasons I hired Bill was because he had a system. He had a plan that I agreed with.
’’Bill told me last year at the beginning of the season that it would probably be a rough year. He wasn’t getting his message across, and he didn’t have the personnel he needed to get this done. He never said anything like that to me at the beginning of this season.’’
Even when the team was 0-2, Kraft said, he knew there was no need to panic. The offensive line had not yet jelled. The free agents Belichick brought aboard, like Mike Compton, running back Antowain Smith, defensive end Anthony Pleasant, and linebackers Mike Vrabel and Roman Phifer had not yet completely acclimated themselves to the coach’s complex schemes.
