Kraft explains how the deal came together.
After Tom Brady signed his team-friendly contract extension last week, the general reaction among national media was that the deal was phony, designed to game the salary cap, and would be ripped up before the extension kicked in.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft says that isn’t true.
“No, no, no,” Kraft told Sports Illustrated. “This is a real deal. Look at our track record. We don’t do fake deals. The contract we have with Tom Brady is a real contract we will both live by.”
The extension carries salaries of $7 million in 2015, $8 million in 2016 and $9 million in 2017, when Brady will turn 40. All told, the deal will save New England $15 million against the cap over the next two years.
The negotiations for the deal began a week after the season when Brady and Kraft flew from Massachusetts to Los Angeles together. One of the things that Kraft made clear to Brady was that the team couldn’t put elite talent around him if 18 to 20 percent of the cap was tied up on one player.
The parameters for the extension were set when the plane landed six hours later.
“I wanted to do something elegant that would work for everybody,” Kraft told the magazine. “I had been talking to him off and on for maybe 18 months, about how I wanted him to finish his career here, and about how we both have to be smart about it. I just really want him to end his career a Patriot.”
One other line of thinking was that Brady took the deal with the understanding that money saved would be used to take care of his favorite wide receiver, Wes Welker.
Not true, according to Kraft.
“I have heard that it's been reported Tom made demands about who he wanted us to sign,” Kraft said. “Absolutely not. It never happened.”