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JARRETT BELL
Tom Brady

Bell: Patriots, Robert Kraft go to familiar public relations playbook to defend Tom Brady

Jarrett Bell
USA TODAY Sports
Patriots owner Robert Kraft addresses reporters Wednesday at the start of training camp.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Nothing sets the tone for the start of a new football season like a team owner blasting the NFL with a prepared statement.

"I was wrong to put my faith in the league," Robert Kraft declared inside Gillette Stadium on Wednesday morning, stewing over NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's decision to keep golden boy quarterback Tom Brady's four-game suspension intact.

Welcome to training camp, New England Patriots style.

After months of Deflategate drama, if you wondered whether the Patriots are on track to make an earnest go toward defending their Super Bowl crown — even with the prospect that Brady will miss a quarter of the regular season — put it to rest.

They seem ready enough, judging by the actions demonstrated on the day the vets reported to training camp.

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Kraft admonished the league. Again. Brady took to Facebook to defend himself, with the underlying message that he is still the ultra-competitor who is resolved to fight for his reputation. And Bill Belichick, the grumbling coach, dismissed one relevant question after another in the disingenuous manner that is his trademark.

Yes, these faces of the franchise, who went through Spygate and the aftermath together in 2007, have gained a certain type of experience with all of their success. And they are now seemingly in midseason form when it comes to exercising their bunker mentality. Belichick even wore a hoodie to the presser — despite the temperature outside risint into the 90s — which in a fashion sense screams normal flow as much as anything.

In his Facebook post, Brady not only maintained his innocence but also declared that no one in the Patriots organization — presumably, he was including the since-discarded underlings implicated in the case of deflated footballs — did anything wrong.

This is the same Brady who was so unconvincing a few months ago when he maintained days after the AFC Championship Game, when the issue surfaced, that he knew nothing about the preparation of the footballs. Maybe Brady didn't direct John Jastremski and Jim McNally to deflate the footballs under the allowable 12.5 psi, but the Wells report revealed that he engaged in an unusual amount of text and phone exchanges with Jastremski in the immediate aftermath of the investigation's launch.

And now Brady's playing some serious defense while Kraft goes on the offensive.

In addition to slamming the league for not having hard evidence, the typically dapper Kraft took a shot at NFL attorneys and chastised the league for an erroneous leak about the air pressure that shaped public opinion as the scandal unfolded.

"I have come to the conclusion that this was never about doing what was fair and just," Kraft said of the investigation and penalties. "Back in May, I had to make a difficult decision that I now regret."

WATCH: Kraft speaks at start of camp

Despite the team issuing a 22-page report that refuted key findings from the Wells report in May, Kraft accepted the significant team penalties — a $1 million fine and the loss of two high-round draft picks, one a first rounder — while explaining that he was inspired to act in the best interest of the league. That didn't hurt his strong reputation as a league-first owner, and it seemed logical that he'd take the hit rather than engage in a messy legal battle against his peers.

But now he's changed his tune. On Wednesday, Kraft revealed a different motive: Brady.

Kraft came off as jilted by Goodell, whom he staunchly supported during the commissioner's most trying times, while acknowledging that he believed Brady would be exonerated because the owner had already fallen on the proverbial sword.

Boy, was he wrong on that one.

When Kraft accepted the franchise's penalties, Goodell insisted that there was no side deal — no quid pro quo — that would result in Brady getting a lesser punishment. If such a deal were executed, just imagine how that would have gone over with other owners. Yet Kraft maintained Wednesday that he believed otherwise, as if he had been duped.

Deal? What deal?

Then again, you can't blame Kraft for sticking by Brady, so instrumental in the four Super Bowl crowns that have made the Patriots this generation's NFL dynasty.

Kraft also did much to relieve the heat on Belichick and everyone else in the organization by firing salvos as camp opened. It was reminiscent of his address when the Patriots arrived in Arizona for Super Bowl XLIX in January, the night when Kraft contended that the NFL would owe the team an apology after the investigation was completed.

Well, that apology certainly didn't happen.

Still, in providing the passionate voice to respond to Goodell's verdict, Kraft said what everyone else involved with the team — members of which he has advised not to speak on the issue — may want to say.

Sure enough, a couple hours after Belichick uttered "that's already been addressed" when asked about Deflategate, team captains Devin McCourty and Matthew Slater stood at the same podium and carried the company line without blinking. They both referenced that Kraft had spoken for the team (you know, the one voice thing), and McCourty was downright Belichickian with one of his responses.

"Our focus right now is — you guys know — go back to training camp, trying to get better every day," he said.

Which sounds a lot like being on track, the Patriot Way.

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Follow NFL columnist Jarrett Bell on Twitter @JarrettBell

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