It might still be too soon to call what is transpiring in New England a cold war, but the Robert Kraft–Bill Belichick relationship has certainly seen better days.
The owner appeared to fire another salvo at the historically successful head coach recently. Belichick defended the Patriots’ unexpected 2021 spending spree by pointing out how the team’s commitments from 2020-22 ranked 27th on average. The Pats’ 2021 splurge remains an outlier for the generally conservative franchise.
“Our spending in 2020, our spending in 2021, and our spending in 2022 — the aggregate of that — was we were 27th in the league in cash spending,” Belichick said in January. “Couple years we’re low, one year was high, but over a three-year period, we are one of the lowest-spending teams in the league.”
This comment came after a question regarding the 2021 free agency period — and not necessarily a dig at Kraft stinginess — but when asked about a willingness to spend money, Kraft shot back to continue what has been a somewhat icy stretch between the two Patriot bigwigs.
“He has never come to me and not gotten everything he wanted from a cash-spending perspective. We have never set limits,'” Kraft said of Belichick during an interview with the Boston Sports Journal’s Greg Bedard (h/t to the Boston Herald). “Money spending will never be the issue, I promise you, or I’ll sell the team.”
Man, people love drama. That first quote from Bill isn't complaining that Kraft isn't willing to pay. Pretty sure it's much more along the lines of "so what if we spent a bunch in 2021, we are usually a low spending team." That's not "yeah, we've had a few unsuccessful years by our standards, but over that time we've also been low spendig." Bill's essentially stating a fact and it's being read as drama.
Krafts response is also supportive. In the context of Bill's comment it can read like there's beef, but if Kraft was just asked something along the lines of "Have you been working with Bill to find a way to sign higher profile FAs?" it's much more neutral.
Boston sports media are the kings of spinning a completely normal quote into drama.