Robert Kraft responded on Wednesday, and the owner did not seem to be offended by the comments, but he still wanted to set the record straight.
"Do you know what he made over the last two years with us?" he asked reporters, according to the Boston Herald. "He made over $20 million the last two years. We don’t pay for quality? I think you can see that [we do]."
That comment from Kraft could be directed mostly at Moss' description of his three-year contract following the 2007 season as a "blessing in disguise." Moss also said "the Patriots don't really pay," so you can imagine the man signing Moss' checks might have disagreed.
Still, the "exchange" is a long way off from a "war of words," as Moss' tone never seemed to indicate he held any resentment toward the organization. And Kraft, ever the businessman, seemed to only hope to illustrate the Patriots' model.
"In any of the family businesses we’re in, we don’t go out and just try to spend money and always be the highest spender," Kraft said, according to Boston.com. "We want to win. If you look collectively at an aggregate basis, we spend to be competitive but also anyone in your readership that has run a business knows that just spending wildly doesn’t mean you’re doing the right thing. You want to spend wisely and you want to spend with the right people."
In that case, Kraft knows that spending money on Moss for the last three years and the upcoming season has been a worthwhile investment, and he knows that any money spent beyond that is likely a bad one. Moss might know that too, but he knows not every owner is as shrewd or patient as Kraft.
Now, is that storyline as juicy as, say, a "Moss and Kraft at odds over contract" story? Of course not, but sometimes, reality is a bit less interesting than hyperbole.
