Sorry. While Rowland shares fault, Kraft communicated that he was committed to the project & that they'd work through pitfalls.No stadium plan is perfect. There are always financial/logistic/political issues that arise. I lived through that time frame in the Hartford area. P/L & business aside..it was marketed by the Patriots & Kraft as a replacement for the Whalers...Hartford Courant had a huge front cover blown up picture w. a stadium & all sorts of charming quotes from Kraft...what happened behind the scenes was far different than what was communicated by all the parties involved. That's where the perils exist. He lied about his commitment & leveraged the state disingenuously to get what he wanted from sticksville. Even Connecticut Cheater fans will not deny this fact. It was shady all around.
Kraft didn't communicate he had a deal he signed a deal with an out that the State gave him. I lived in CT at the time. The Governor made an amazingly dumb commitment of taxpayer money to Kraft. Kraft took the deal and signed it with an out clause. The Governor screwed around trying to make a deal that he couldn't get for the existing land. Kraft got cold feet because the time line he was promised to break ground and deliver wasn't going to be kept. Woody Johnson had all kinds of pretty pictures in the NY Papers with the new Jets Manhattan stadium. As soon as the Olympic committee passed on NY, NY politicians bailed on the deal. We just watched the Mayor of NYC write an op-ed in the Times blaming Amazon for not selling the deal the city and State made with him to bring Amazon jobs to Queens. Politicians don't take blame for their failure. In this case Roland made two huge mistakes. He gave away the store to Kraft to get a deal and he couldn't deliver the store. Must have been Krafts fault. Sorry Kraft didn't owe the City of Hartford anything. The politicians made a deal they couldn't keep.
He didn't owe CT anything...but the citizens of CT don't owe Kraft anything for hating his guts for terrible optics & cut throat corporate greed. We're not gonna agree on this. It was a bad deal by all accounts. Plenty share blame. But to exonerate Kraft for his role in which he absolutely leveraged the state when he truthfully had no intention of ever relocating the team after the Whaler disaster...people in CT who aren't even football fans hate Kraft to this day.Rightfully so. Back to my original point...even if you remove the CT hose job from the equation..he still smugly stated that cheating helped 1%...He's a complete dirtbag.
This is where we disagree. The State of CT guaranteed Kraft a Billion dollar top line take. He would have been a dope not to take it if the State could have actually delivered it. People in CT. depending on where they live are mostly either Giant fans or Pats fans. The younger fans mostly support the Pats, the older fans mostly the Giants. I have no doubt Kraft is corrupt as they come. He's not stupid. He wanted the CT deal. He would have made a fortune on it.
I can live with that as a point of disagreement. I remember local media outlets reporting that Kraft had no intention of coming to Hartford but to your point that never made sense b.c if it had been properly funded & supported who wouldn't have wanted it? The stadium was gonna be in downtown Hartford compared to sticksville off 495? It was a no brainer. CT has become a big time football melting pot. It used to be mostly Giants...now it's more split Northeast/South west portions of state in terms of most popular. Hartford/Tolland/Windham counties are Patriots. New Haven/Fairfield/New london/Litchfield are Giants. That said there are alot of Steeler,Redskins & Cowboys fans. And believe it or not there are a TON of Jet fans in certain areas.I'd almost go as far as to say that in places like Waterbury, Manchester,New Haven & Fairfield there are just as many Jets fans as any other team.
Before the Pats became a perineal winner most of New England football fans were hard core NY Giants fans. The Giants NFL deal gave them the local radio and TV rights to all of New England prior to the merger. Most of the local radio and tv affiliates continued to broadcast the Giants from NJ to Maine. I think the Giants still get lots of local broadcast in NE when they aren't going head to head with the Pats. The NFL deal with the franchises really protected geography and the Giants had an amazingly large population in their exclusive territory. With Eli close to done if Darnold becomes a great QB the Jets have a chance to really take back Southern CT. from both the Giants and NE with a new young fan base.
I see more Jets gear in western CT than Giants gear. I've lived east and west in the state over the last 15 years and the east was always Pats territory and the west split between Pats, Jets and Giants. The Giants definitely had the edge in the west when they were winning SB's but that's 8 years ago now. If Darnold is the real thing western CT will be Jets turf and eastern will be split between Jets and whichever of the other two teams is worth a damn. If the Pats go down the standings in the next few years they're going to lose a lot of fair weather fans who have never experienced a run of losing.
That has got to be one of the best typos/autocorrections of all time, especially when referencing the Cheats. EDIT: For those who don't know or who have momentarily forgotten human anatomy . . . Spoiler Perineum/Perineal: The perineum/perineal area is the space between the anus and scrotum in the male and between the anus and the vulva in the female.
We don't need no stinkin' bandwagoners (shakes fist)! Where were these people when the Jets pulled off the most epic thing ever? 3-11, 3-11, 3-11==> three years in row! I was there.
I know this will blow your minds but this thing never even happened. It's entirely made up. Like most scandals are. No billionaire goes to a strip mall for a happy ending. It's' just a hilarious fictional joke. It happened in florida. Next year's SB is in florida. I'm not saying it means a win. But its a clue of some sort.
