ATLANTA — Falcons owner Arthur Blank said Thursday there is a “general feeling” the Patriots’ failure to acknowledge mistakes added to the punishment they received from the NFL for deflating footballs.
The Patriots were hit with more severe punishments than the penalties the Falcons received March 30 for pumping fake noise into games, and Blank said it was only natural that he compared the teams’ penalties this week when the NFL took action against New England.
Blank said his team’s penalties were “a little difficult” but “reasonable.” The Falcons were fined $350,000 and stripped of a 2016 fifth-round pick, and team president Rich McKay was suspended from the league’s powerful competition committee for at least three months.
The Patriots’ penalties, meanwhile, were more than “a little difficult,” perhaps in part because of their refusal to accept mistakes. Quarterback Tom Brady was suspended four games and the team was fined $1 million and the loss of a first-round draft pick next year and a fourth-rounder in 2017. Brady is appealing the suspension.
“That seems to be the general feeling, that some of the frustration whether on an individual basis or organizational basis, was the failure to acknowledge,” Blank said.
Indeed, Blank and Patriots owner Robert Kraft took different approaches when faced with allegations.
Blank told The Associated Press in early February that his team was wrong to pump in fake crowd noise in 2013 and 2014, and the NFL said the Falcons cooperated fully in the investigation.
On the other hand, Ted Wells, the league’s appointed investigator, said Brady and the Patriots were not fully cooperative, contributing to the penalties.
Blank praised Kraft as “one of the great owners” in the NFL. He predicted Kraft and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will protect their relationship.
“Putting aside my personal relationship with him, he’s one of … a handful of owners, when they stand up in that room and they talk, everybody else listens, because they have a history of putting the league ahead of their own franchise,” Blank said. “Robert has done that, has demonstrated that.
“I think after things are processed, Robert will be in a good place, I think the commissioner will be in a good place, I think their relationship will be a good one and they will continue to work for the benefit of the National Football League for a long time.”
Thumbnail photo via Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports Images
