The House of Kraft turned out to be a House of Cards once Tom Brady and Bill Belichick weren’t around to kick anymore.
www.bostonherald.com
As a Packer fan since my youth (early 70s) I can't help but see a lot of similarities between the current Pats situation, and what Green Bay went through after Lombardi left.
They spent the next 25yrs trying to re-create the Lombardi era by promoting his assistant coaches (Bengston) and hoping they could do the same thing Vince did. When that didn't work, they hired former Lombardi players as head coach (Starr, Gregg) and hoped they could recapture the same magic. All the while they consistently drafted poorly and turned GB into a franchise that no free agent wanted to play for.
It took them 25yrs of absolute shit, before that team finally decided to get with the times and figured out that running the Packer Sweep in 1990 just wasn't working anymore. Nothing changed until they finally figured out that they needed new talent, with a new perspective, who weren't afraid to innovate and cut loose the ghost of Lombardi.
They hired Mike Holmgren (a Bill Walsh guy) and brought in Ron Wolf as GM and finally let the past go. They innovated on offense, focused on drafting well, and rebuilt the culture. They also hired young, innovative coaches (Gruden, Mariucci, Reed).
Its tough for franchises to leave a dynasty behind and chart a new course. Hopefully it won't take the Pats 25 years to figure that out.
