The proposal proved irresistible to Orthwein. He accepted Kraft’s offer, which preempted interest from an investor group that included Paul Newman and Walter Payton. Robert Kraft became New England’s fourth owner in six years.
On February 26, his first official day in charge, Kraft announced that the franchise would remain in New England indefinitely, and in Foxboro Stadium for the time being. Despite a snowstorm, fans purchased 5,958 season tickets, even more than on Parcells’s arrival, setting the team’s single-day record. Patriots supporters were looking beyond their team’s league-worst mark over the previous four seasons, guaranteeing that every home game in the upcoming season would be sold out for the first time in the franchise’s thirty-four-year history.
Kraft, a Giants fan growing up, had graduated from Massachusetts’s Brookline High in 1959, one year before the creation of the AFL and the Patriots. On February 2, 1962, during his school break as a junior at Columbia University, Kraft met a Brandeis University sophomore, Myra, who happened to be the daughter of Jacob Hiatt, a leading industrialist and philanthropist in Worcester, Massachusetts. Their first date ended with a marriage proposal—from Myra Hiatt. Robert Kraft accepted, and the couple married in June 1963, during the same week that he graduated from Columbia. Kraft enrolled at Harvard Business School, completing his studies in 1965. Following a brief stint on Wall Street he joined Rand-Whitney, a paper products company in Worcester owned by Jacob Hiatt. Kraft showed considerable investment acumen, and in 1968 the owner’s son-in-law acquired 50 percent of the company in a leveraged buyout before asserting control of it.
After the Patriots landed a home stadium in 1971, Kraft purchased season tickets for his wife and four boys. His eldest child, Jonathan, was seven years old at the unveiling of Schaefer Stadium. For the next several seasons, the Krafts sat in section 217, row 23, end-zone seats 1 through 6, watching the “Patsies” sputter. The best aspect of attendance for Kraft was family time, but the Newton resident fantasized about owning the franchise and overseeing a winner.
He accumulated the requisite wealth over the next several years, dramatically expanding the size of his private company by acquiring related businesses. The chief of the nation’s largest paper company emerged as one of Massachusetts’s richest men. By the late 1980s Kraft had earned a reputation for civic philanthropy while occasionally getting embroiled in lawsuits involving his business dealings. In acquiring the Patriots, and preventing them from bolting to St. Louis, Kraft further elevated his stature throughout the Boston area, turning him into a savior.
Robert Kraft focused on learning the business of football while running the Patriots in a fashion similar to his paper-and-packaging empire. He saw the head coach as a company leader who would regularly report to the chief executive officer, particularly on important developments. With his eldest son, Jonathan, as his lieutenant, Robert Kraft placed an emphasis on marketing the team and upgrading Foxboro Stadium in order to generate more revenue. Beyond the stability created by Kraft’s commitment, Parcells appreciated the family’s willingness to spend money on players. That approach, contrasting with Orthwein’s, helped improve New England’s roster via free agency in 1994. And Parcells was heartened that Robert Kraft intended to allocate more money to the team’s payroll with a cash infusion in 1995.
Parcells’s new players included more ex-Giants: linebacker Steve DeOssie, safety Myron Guyton, and guard Bob Kratch. He also hired his ex-fullback Maurice Carthon to oversee New England’s running backs. The Big Blue influx prompted playful references to the “New England Giants.” Like any other Patriots fan, Robert Kraft revered the team’s legendary head coach. Early in his ownership Kraft maintained Parcells’s autonomy while making administrative moves that included the departure of several business employees. Nonetheless, Parcells detected some red flags. After paying the most money in sports history for a team, Kraft showed little interest in giving carte blanche to a head coach. Instead, the owner’s actions signaled his plan to become proactive in football decisions, specifically personnel matters. And Parcells noticed front-office holdovers angling to influence Kraft by praising all of his ideas.
“When a new owner comes in, people in the organization have their own agendas,” Parcells says. “There were lots of voices in Kraft’s ear. The year before, I was basically making the decisions because the other people weren’t capable of making them. And that’s the truth.
“The general manager [Patrick Forte] had no real football experience. I don’t know how he ever got there. The personnel director [Bobby Grier] had some experience, but he wasn’t down the road far enough. And his experience was just in one area. It was pretty chaotic.”
Parcells was also disturbed by Kraft’s getting personally attached to Drew Bledsoe. The head coach believed that the owner’s behavior would erode the organization’s chain of command, while giving the quarterback a sense of entitlement. “That was a major mistake,” Parcells says, “to show preferential treatment. The problem was not knowing any better, and thinking, ‘Well, this is my franchise.’ ”
Eighteen players from the previous season were no longer on the roster. With Marion Butts, a former seventh-round pick acquired from San Diego, as the starting tailback, New England lacked a stout running game. And in the absence of the big, strong athletes who had populated Parcells’s Giants, defense remained a liability. An advocate of power football to control the clock, limit turnovers, and keep his defense fresh, Parcells found himself on unfamiliar terrain. New England’s roster was bolstered by a gifted, strong-armed quarterback who had made strides late in his rookie season. So Parcells repressed his run-heavy proclivity in order to increase his team’s chances of winning.
Going into the 1994 season he decided to unleash Drew Bledsoe by installing an offense that emphasized passing. Parcells foresaw an increased role for tight end Ben Coates, who had led New England the previous season in receptions with 53 for 629 yards, while scoring eight touchdowns. Parcells’s decision, made decades before the NFL turned into a pass-oriented league, contradicted his image, but it also affirmed his reputation, dating to his college-coaching years, for putting his players in the best situation to succeed. “There’s a fine line in this business,” Parcells says. “You never have everything you want. And your system doesn’t always fit what you have perfectly. So you have to adjust.”
Explaining his disinterest in being remembered for X’s and O’s, Parcells adds, “There’s not one single person on earth that knows the circumstances of my teams—players, situations, competition—like me. I did what I thought was best with the players I had that year. I have a high regard for people that ran completely different systems: Joe Gibbs, Bill Walsh. I tried to use the people I had in a system that would allow their talents to flourish.
“The sign of a good coach is one who will fit the scheme to the personnel available, at least temporarily, until he can begin to integrate people more in line with his philosophy. What are you going to do? Say, ‘Okay, none of these guys are any good for what I want’? Well, who’s going to play? You have to play them. They’re under contract. You can’t build a driveway if you don’t have any cement.”
Drew Bledsoe instantly flourished, guiding a wide-open offense that produced 35 points in each of New England’s first two games. Nonetheless, feeble defensive efforts in those contests against Miami and Buffalo led to narrow losses. The unit improved in its next three games, taking advantage of Bledsoe’s explosive freewheeling to spur a winning streak. Maintaining the gaudy offensive numbers, though, proved to be impossible, as New England looked sluggish while losing four straight, in mostly close outcomes that dropped its record to 3-6.
Around this time Kraft seemed to grasp the significance of the lucrative sideline rights Parcells had negotiated with Orthwein. Parcells’s shrewdness in negotiating the unprecedented deal was substantially costing the new owner ancillary revenue. The first hint of Kraft’s concerns came when he groused to Parcells about the franchise’s enormous debt.
Every few days, Kraft made similar remarks about bleeding money. “He gave me this sorry stuff,” Parcells recalls. “He was driving me nuts with it.”
Parcells mentioned Kraft’s behavior to his agent, Robert Fraley. Aware of the value of the marketing rights, Fraley urged Parcells to hold on to them tightly unless the owner made a strong offer. Just in case, the head coach and his agent came up with an acceptable figure.
Finally, one day Kraft asked, “Well, what do you want for the sideline rights?”
Parcells responded, “I’ll sell ’em to you for $900,000.”
“Okay, let’s do it.”
Parcells agreed to relinquish his marketing rights in exchange for three equal annual payments totaling $900,000: Kraft’s first disbursement, $300,000, was scheduled for September 16, 1995. The next payment was due exactly one year later; and the final remittance, $300,000, would be made on September 16, 1997. In obtaining the marketing rights from Parcells, Kraft planned to sign a more lucrative deal with Starter, a sportswear company based in New Haven, Connecticut, that had license agreements with several NFL teams.
New England’s aspirations to snap a seven-year postseason drought were on the line when the Minnesota Vikings visited Foxboro Stadium on a chilly afternoon, November 13, 1994. Quarterbacked by Warren Moon, who was enjoying his latest prolific season, Minnesota sported the NFL’s top record at 7-2. Its ferocious pass rush was knocking out quarterbacks so frequently that it was being compared to the Big Blue Wrecking Crew.
In the first half Minnesota scored 20 straight points while rendering New England’s offense anemic. Parcells was as incensed by his team’s lack of urgency as he was by its 20–3 halftime deficit. In the locker room during the intermission, the Patriots seemed shell-shocked. Parcells viewed fiery halftime speeches as being most effective with a self-assured team, and gave them sparingly. In this case, he knew that berating his players, many of whom were inured to losing, would be counterproductive. Feeling some responsibility for New England’s lethargy in the crucial game, Parcells gathered his players into a semicircle.
In a calm voice he focused on the top two veterans: left tackle Bruce Armstrong and linebacker Vincent Brown. “You’ve been here for seven years, Brown. How long are you going to take this? You’ve been here for eight years, Armstrong. You going to take it for ten? If so, don’t call yourselves professional football players. You’re just some guys out there passing the time and getting paid.” Looking over the rest of the group, Parcells added, “What’s it going to take for you guys to wake up? How long are you going to let every team in this league push you around before you fight back?”
Parcells concluded the appeal to his team’s pride with a strategic change. He instructed Drew Bledsoe to employ a no-huddle offense, generally used by teams down late in the final period. The conservative coach had never tried a hurry-up system in the third quarter, but with New England’s season on the brink and its offense having produced only one first down, the times called for desperate measures.
At the helm of an accelerated offense, Bledsoe returned to early-season form. His rapid-fire pinpoint passing left Minnesota’s defense exhausted, and a step slower on each snap. With 14 seconds remaining in regulation time, Matt Bahr’s 23-yard field goal tied the score at 20. After New England received the overtime kickoff, Bledsoe completed six consecutive passes, capped by a 14-yard rainbow to fullback Kevin Turner in the left corner of the end zone. Bledsoe started to raise his arms to signal a touchdown for a remarkable 26–20 triumph, but his teammates mobbed him before he could finish the gesture.
The second-year quarterback set NFL records for completions (45) and pass attempts (70) as New England’s tailbacks carried the ball only 10 times. He accumulated 426 passing yards, throwing three touchdowns and zero interceptions. Despite throwing so much against a team with a punishing pass rush, Bledsoe had avoided being sacked.
The victory marked a turning point for the franchise. Reinvigorated, New England parlayed the comeback into a six-game streak to keep its slim postseason hopes alive with one contest left: Christmas Eve on the road versus the 9-6 Chicago Bears, who were also striving for a playoff berth.
Even as Bledsoe developed into a legitimate star during New England’s dash to 9-6, Parcells remained unappeasable. When the quarterback overthrew a receiver at one practice, Parcells screamed, “Drew, who the hell are you throwing it to? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?” Bledsoe could never get used to such remarks, deeming them unnecessary. But winning helped make the zingers more tolerable. So despite what Bledsoe considered to be a tense relationship, the two men adulated by Patriots Nation for reviving the franchise were able to get along.
With the playoffs at stake, Parcells’s team visited Soldier Field for its regular-season finale. During a defensive struggle the Patriots led, 6–3, late in the final period, when Bledsoe’s three-yard touchdown pass to tailback Leroy Thompson cemented the outcome. New England’s 10-6 mark locked them in a wild-card berth—the franchise’s first playoff appearance in nine years. Coinciding with a pro baseball strike, an NHL lockout, and the Celtics’ poor play, the Patriots’ run captivated the Boston area. Parcells’s team was the NFL’s most surprising, earning him the Coach of the Year award, and further burnishing his credentials. New England’s transformation, coming only a couple of years after a two-victory season, gave him one of the most gratifying feelings of his career.
The season seemed surreal in more ways than one. A young quarterback coached by Bill Parcells threw the most passes in NFL history, 691. Drew Bledsoe had amassed 400 completions, four short of Warren Moon’s NFL record for a season, while setting a franchise mark with 4,555 passing yards. And at age twenty-two, Bledsoe became the youngest quarterback ever named to the Pro Bowl. In another historic individual season, Ben Coates caught 96 passes, the most ever by a tight end, for 1,174 yards. The fifth-round pick out of Livingstone College, a tiny, historically black school in North Carolina, also earned Pro Bowl honors.
Nonetheless, in order to advance in the playoffs, Bill Parcells’s Patriots would need all of their firepower and more against the last opponent to beat them: Bill Belichick’s Cleveland Browns, who owned the league’s top-rated defense.
Bill Belichick grew closer to Bill Parcells after departing for Cleveland in 1991. As fellow head coaches they suddenly had much more in common, making their sideline clashes seem like ancient history. During the NFL season they spoke on the phone at least once a week, renewing a friendship that had been at its best in the early 1980s. The frequency of their discussions spiked midway through the 1993 season when Belichick waived quarterback Bernie Kosar, drawing the ire of Browns fans.
The Youngstown, Ohio, native had become the team’s most popular player by helping Cleveland reach the AFC Championship three times in four seasons, while setting passing records including consecutive games without an interception. But as Cleveland’s new head coach, Belichick considered Kosar a player with “diminishing skills,” prompting a switch to Vinny Testaverde. Over the course of lengthy conversations, Parcells urged Belichick to hold steady despite the move’s unpopularity with most Browns fans. Belichick had reciprocated the support when Parcells’s Patriots initially floundered during his NFL return. Given their bromance, neither head coach wanted to face the other in the postseason, but the football gods gave them no choice.
Leading up to the game, “Little Bill” publicly credited “Big Bill” for helping to mold him into a head coach. Steve Belichick, acknowledging the irony of the matchup, seconded the notion by pointing out several strategies his son had picked up from Parcells: Bill Belichick placed his players under tremendous duress during practice, and often required them to wear pads. Like Parcells, the secretive head coach was occasionally dismissive toward the media. Belichick brought many of Parcells’s sayings to Cleveland. Conversely, Parcells praised his former lieutenant for his substantial contributions to Big Blue’s past championship seasons. He noted that New England’s defensive schemes, implemented by coor
dinator Al Groh, included several of Belichick’s brainchildren.
Despite Cleveland’s losing record during Belichick’s first three seasons, in keeping with his reputation he fielded strong defenses, run by Nick Saban. The 1994 unit led the NFL in fewest points allowed, 204, or an average of only 12.8 per game, to set a franchise record. Drew Bledsoe had run into Belichick’s miserly defense on November 6 at Cleveland Stadium, where the Browns forced him into four interceptions during their 13–6 victory. Bledsoe’s heroics during the rest of the regular season had helped his team reach the postseason for the first time since 1986, but in the rematch on New Year’s Day at Cleveland Stadium he struggled again, to the delight of 77,452 spectators. On an unseasonably cool afternoon the Browns picked off Bledsoe three times, exploiting New England’s reliance on the pass. Conversely, Vinny Testaverde, with terrific support from his tailbacks, delivered a sharp performance on 20-of-30 passing, including 11 straight completions. Despite a 10–10 tie at intermission, Cleveland dominated the second half, giving Belichick his first playoff victory as a head coach.
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