Kraft reportedly tried to talk Jones out of his crusade vs. Goodell

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Robert Kraft feels as though he set a precedent of sorts, it seems.

He didn't agree with the punishment his team was handed because of Deflategate, yet he accepted it anyway because he wanted to be a good partner to the NFL's other 31 owners. Now that Jerry Jones is in the process of trying to "overthrow Roger Goodell," as a source cited in a recent report on TheMMQB.com alleges, Kraft is wondering why Jones won't just begrudgingly accept his star running back Ezekiel Elliott's suspension.

In the report, a source with knowledge of a call between owners who make up the NFL's Compensation Committee said that Kraft encouraged Jones to push aside any hard feelings that may have cropped up due to the Elliott suspension and stand down in his attempt halt an extension between the league and its commissioner.

From TheMMQB.com: "[Jones] has been angry that Goodell came down hard on players even when overwhelming evidence did not exist. Still, in that fateful conference call Nov. 2, after Jones’ threat, the source with knowledge of the call said Patriots owner and committee member Robert Kraft told Jones words to this effect: 

Jerry, my franchise got killed for a BS incident with so-called deflated footballs. We lost our quarterback for 25% of the season. We got fined a million bucks. We lost first- and fourth-round picks. For hogwash! But I took it. My fans killed me for it, but I try to be a good partner.

On the one hand, Jones' attempts to remove Goodell are rich. Earlier this year, Jones voted to authorize the Compensation Committee to do a deal with Goodell. But then his star player got suspended, and suddenly his opinion on the subject changed. Equally laughable is the fact that when Tom Brady and the Patriots were going through Deflategate, Jones was very vocal in his support of Goodell. Now that the shoe is on the other foot . . . not so much. 

On the other hand, it's no surprise that at least one of the 32 clubs has finally tried to stand up to the league's current way of doing business. With things set up the way they are now -- with Goodell given the power to punish players however he sees fit, even when there is plenty in the way of reasonable doubt -- it was probably only a matter of time before something like this bubbled up. 

Jones probably doesn't have the league-wide support to affect the change he so desperately wants, but ownership now has a certified mess on its hands thanks in part to the monster it helped create.

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