Patriots owner Robert Kraft wants NFL apology if investigation clears team

CHANDLER, Ariz. – New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft criticized the NFL, the way deflate-gate has been handled and reported on, said he wanted an apology from the league if its investigation doesn’t turn up anything, and basically dropped the mic on the conversation of the entire matter for the rest of the week. 

It was surreal. It was an unscheduled statement by Kraft before coach Bill Belichick’s first news conference in Arizona for the Super Bowl. He was angry and frustrated and stood completely behind Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady and their claims that they didn’t do anything to cause the Patriots’ game footballs to be under-inflated in the AFC championship game. 

And if the NFL investigation by Ted Wells doesn’t provide proof, he wants an apology from the league.

“If the Wells investigation is not able to definitively determine that our organization tampered with the air pressure in the footballs, I would expect and hope the league would apologize to our entire team, and in particular to Coach Belichick and Tom Brady, for what they’ve had to endure this week,” Kraft said. “I’m disappointed in the way this entire matter has been handled and reported upon. We expect hard facts rather than circumstantial leaked evidence to drive the conclusion of this investigation.”

Wow.

Kraft started his statement, which he said he wrote on the flight from Massachusetts to Arizona on Monday, by throwing his entire support behind Brady and Belichick.

“I want to make it clear, I believe unconditionally that the New England Patriots have done nothing inappropriate in this process or are in violation of NFL rules,” Kraft said. “Tom, Bill and I have been together for 15 years. They are my guys. They are part of my family. Bill, Tom and I have had many difficult discussions over the years. I’ve never known them to lie to me. That’s why I’m confident in saying what I just said.

“It bothers me greatly their reputations and integrity – and by association that of our team – has been called into question this week.”

It’s likely Kraft made the statement as an unofficial end to deflate-gate talk for Super Bowl week. Belichick, who gave a lengthy news conference on Saturday to discuss the controversy, made it clear he’s done talking about it.

“I appreciate the question, but I’ve spent quite a bit of time and had two lengthy press conferences about that,” Belichick said to the first question of his news conference, which was related to deflate-gate. “My attention is totally turned now on the Seattle Seahawks and our game Sunday, and that’s where it’s going to stay for this week.”

Belichick repeated a version of that same answer a few more times to follow-up questions about the controversy. Quarterback Tom Brady followed Belichick and spoke of moving forward.

if you needed any further evidence that the Patriots are quite angry about the whole ordeal, Kraft provided it. He challenged the league to either come up with proof of wrongdoing or apologize. Your move, NFL.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab