Robert Kraft explains why taking personnel decisions away from Bill Belichick wouldn’t have worked
"I think it's good to have checks and balances and once you have it, it's hard to pull it away and expect to have the accountability that you want."
FOXBOROUGH — During Bill Belichick’s final days as Patriots head coach, there was some speculation as to whether team owner Robert Kraft would allow Belichick to return if would be willing to relinquish some of his decision-making power for personnel decisions.
Belichick didn’t just coach the players. For much of his Patriots career, he was the one who picked them as well.
His track record on such decisions has been spotty at best in recent years, and the team’s performance reflects that. New England has missed the playoffs in three of the past four seasons. This year, they went 4-13 which tied for the worst record in the NFL. The Patriots didn’t have a single player selected for the Pro Bowl either.
Belichick signaled during his end of the year press conference earlier this week that he would have been open to giving up some of his power. But, Kraft concluded that it wouldn’t have been a reasonable thing to ask. He explained why on Thursday.
“We thought about that,” Kraft said. “But I’ve had experience running different businesses and trying to develop a team. Think about it: when you have someone like Bill, who’s had control over every decision, every coach we hire, the organization reports to him on the draft and how much money we spend.”
“Every decision has been his, and we’ve always supported him,” Kraft added. “To then take some of that power away and give it to someone else — accountability is important to me in every one of our companies — and where he had the responsibility and then someone else takes it, it’s going to set up confusion. ‘Well, it was his pick and it was a bad pick,’ or ‘He didn’t play him right,’ it just wouldn’t work in my opinion.”
At one point years ago, Kraft did opt to consolidate power and have Belichick take over personnel decisions in addition to his coaching duties.
He was asked if handling both jobs is too much for one person in today’s NFL.
“Well, that’s a good point,” Kraft said. “Just to be clear, he didn’t have all that power and — I don’t think that happened until after the third Super Bowl. But, it slowly happened and in my opinion he earned it and it worked pretty well for most of the time.
“But, all of us need checks and balances in our life,” he added. “We need what I call ‘Dr. No’s’ around us to protect us from ourselves. As things evolved and you get more power, sometimes people are afraid to speak up. I’m speaking about all companies. I think it’s good to have checks and balances and once you have it it’s hard to pull it away and expect to have the accountability that you want.”
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