Kraft praised Bill Belichick on Monday when asked about some of the unusual decisions the coach made in the Super Bowl loss to Philadelphia.
As for any split among owner Adidas Corey Crawford Jersey , coach and star quarterback, Kraft said he has learned to work with ”a strong and powerful coach.”
”The so-called tension gets greater when you lose,” Kraft added.
And with Brady, Kraft noted that the ”feeling of a loss is worse than the feeling of a win” in a Super Bowl, except for that first victory.
”I think Tommy is in that category.”
Kraft spoke to media at the NFL owners meetings and was grilled about everything from whether All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski will return for another season (Kraft never really answered, though he said he’d seen Gronkowski at the team facility this offseason) to why cornerback Malcolm Butler, now with the Titans, was benched for the Super Bowl.
Mostly, the questions were about friction in New England. Kraft said he has met with both Belichick and Brady, something he does regularly.
”I have faith in Bill as coach,” Kraft said. ”I don’t think there’s anyone (else) who has the football knowledge and expertise and understands personnel and is able to merge those. As someone privileged to own one of these teams, I encourage him to keep going with his instincts.
”This is not an energy firm where you go from A to B to C to D. I think Bill’s structure has been pretty good most of the time and has worked pretty well.”
Kraft admitted he was perplexed that Butler, a Super Bowl hero in the 2015 game http://www.seahawksauthorizedshops.com/authentic-alex-mcgough-jersey , didn’t play against the Eagles. But he acknowledged he was looking at it from a fan’s viewpoint.
”There’s no doubt in my mind that if he is doing it for the right reason,” Kraft said of Belichick’s decision, ”I support it. I haven’t had one instance where Bill has done any decision that was not in the best interest of the team.”
While noting that Brady had an unparalleled season as a 40-year-old quarterback, including his third career MVP award, Kraft also recognized how difficult the final game of the 2017 season was for Brady.
”You don’t get public with your feelings two weeks after a Super Bowl loss,” he said.
Kraft got emotional when concluding the session by talking about lending the team’s airplane to students from Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida so they could attend the ”March For Our Lives” in Washington on the weekend.
”When they called and asked would you send a plane and help take the wounded kids and their families and kids who couldn’t go on a normal plane, we didn’t hesitate a minute,” Kraft said. ”Because think of it, all of you who have kids, think about losing one of your kids. You wake up in the morning and they go to school and don’t come home at night.
”I just thought this is a way for our organization to be able to reach out to those people who are hurting bad. I can’t think of a worse, unnatural thing of losing your child.”
Then Kraft, a donor to the Trump campaign Authentic Lukas Dostal Jersey , criticized the legislative process and current environment in the nation’s capital.
”I have a big problem with what’s going on in Washington and the divisiveness,” he said, ”and no one’s listening to one another and forgetting where you stand on this issue.”
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Shaquille O’Neal is already known by many names. Superman. The Diesel. The Big Aristotle. But he would like to add another to the list: Movie Star.
In ”Uncle Drew,” which opens Friday, he plays one of the former basketball stars (all of them real pros under heavy old-man makeup) reunited by Kyrie Irving’s titular character (first created for a TV ad) to compete in a street-ball tournament at Harlem’s Rucker Park. Shaq’s character, known as Big Fella, is found running a martial arts dojo.
But post-NBA life has been far more successful for the four-time NBA champion. He’s an analyst on TNT’s ”Inside the NBA,” a popular pitchman and an active entrepreneur and investor. He has dabbled in everything from professional wrestling to law enforcement. He’s even a voice setting on the Waze navigation app. This summer he will tour under the name DJ Diesel.
”Uncle Drew” is just one of the projects that the 46-year-old O’Neal has going. Among his favorites is a TBS show he’s developing with Ken Jeong. Comparing their chemistry to Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, O’Neal says it will be ”`Seinfeld”-epic-ish.”
In an interview, O’Neal spoke about his big plans in Hollywood, why the NBA has gotten soft and where he hopes LeBron James lands this off-season.
AP: What do you miss about playing in the NBA?
O’Neal: I miss all of it. I miss interacting with the fans. I miss having the unexpected adrenaline rush, the doubts, the fear Jerome Baker Color Rush Jersey , overcoming the fear. I miss everything.
AP: Do you play anymore?
O’Neal: No, not at all.
AP: How come?
O’Neal: I ain’t got it. Right now, I’m relinquishing all my powers to my son who’s going to UCLA .
AP: That’s a shame. I’d love to see you and Charles Barkley play one-on-one.
O’Neal: Yeah, Charles would lose.
AP: Your post-NBA career has been uncommonly busy. Why?
O’Neal: Seventy percent of all professional athletes have nothing, not even a job, after they’re done. The fact that I couldn’t even call a franchise to get an interview to be a coach frightened me. So nothing was simple. Educate yourself, be nice to people and save your money. If you do that, you should be OK.
AP: You have numerous TV shows and films in development. What are your Hollywood aspirations?
O’Neal: I want to be as big as Rock.
AP: Dwayne Johnson is the biggest movie star on the planet. That’s setting a high bar.
O’Neal: We come from the same place: athletes that transition. That’s my goal. I want similar type movies. I want to get thrillers. I want to get dramas. I want to do comedies. I want to be the next Rock. I want to do a thriller where I’m like a hero and beat up all the bad guys.
AP: It’s been 24 years since your big-screen debut, ”Blue Chips.” Do you feel like a veteran actor?
O’Neal: Well, I have shot 15 movies. I always tell my friends I shot 15 movies but they say, ”Yeah, but if you play Shaq in nine of the movies, that’s not really acting.” I say Davante Adams Jersey Elite , ”You make a good point.” I’m just happy to have the opportunity.
AP: Favorite movie?
O’Neal: Oh, ”Stepbrothers.” All day, every day. I know that movie by heart.
AP: What else do you like?
O’Neal: I just got done watching ”Justice League.” I thought it was pretty good. But they held Superman out too long.
AP: In vogue in today’s NBA are big men who can shoot from the perimeter . Could you have developed a three-point game?
O’Neal: No, I would have played the same way. Because you can’t score 40 points a night shooting jumpers. Nobody has, nobody will. But you can score 40 points a night shooting 60, 70 percent inside the paint. The fact that guys are shooting jumpers, that’s just telling me they don’t like physical contact. Shooting jumpers is easy. Anybody can shoot a jumper. But can you bang a guy four of five times and then still have enough to score two points for your team?
AP: You think the league has gotten soft.
O’Neal: Of course.
AP: The Lakers are rumored to be a likely landing spot for LeBron James. Do you want that to happen?
O’Neal: I just want the Lakers to be like they were back in the day. I want somebody that can beat Golden State. Golden State has turned into madness. The thing that would make me very excited is if LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard came to the Lakers. Then you’d have problems in the West. Then basketball would be fun again.
AP: Have you ever talked to Kyrie Irving about his flat Earth beliefs ?
O’Neal: No, because I said it too. But I was playing.
AP: You were in make-up for four hours a day for ”Uncle Drew.” How did you pass the time?
O’Neal: Sleep. When I woke up, it still wasn’t done.
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