New England Patriots President Jonathan Kraft has come out swinging in defense of head coach Bill Belichick and the whole organization.
Kraft appeared on 98.5 The Sports Hub radio show on Thursday, and vehemently denied a Rolling Stones report that Bill Belichick or the Patriots organization knew Hernandez was unstable, or that Bill Belichick told Hernandez to purchase a safe house.
It said that Aaron had told Bill that he feared for his life and that his life was in danger and Bill’s response was to tell him to get a safe house and lie low. I actually saw Bill—I think I would’ve known if that had ever happened—but I saw Bill today and I said, ‘Bill, did Aaron ever tell you his life was in danger?’ And he’s like, “Absolutely not.”
If a player had told Bill his life was in danger, Bill would say we’re calling [team director of security] Mark Briggs, we’re calling the authorities.
Kraft then went on to dispute claims that the organization was aware of Hernandez off field troubles, and denies that the Patriots had grown tired of Hernandez, were about to release him anyway.
It’s fair to assume that we’ll never truly know how much the Patriots actually knew about Hernandez’s troubles until Hernandez himself shares that information.