While North Attleboro, MA police continue to investigate New England TE Aaron Hernandez’ possible role in the death of a 27 year old friend, the incident has afforded the local press an opportunity to turn up the heat on Patriots owner Robert Kraft (above). Just a day after longtime Pats-baiter Ron Borges made a sneering allusion to Hernandez making a donation to one of Kraft’s pet charity, a similar reference pops up in an editorial that ran in Saturday’s Boston Herald (“whatever the future of Hernandez, it’s those who hired him, who brought him into this community, who have a lot of explaining to do”) :
It’s all very nice to talk about second chances and redemption, but Hernandez’s reputation before and during his University of Florida career was pretty well known. He was a hard-partying kid (and kid really was the operative word), who failed some drug tests and hung out with the wrong crowd. An NFL scouting report quoted in the Boston Globe said, “Self-esteem is quite low; not well-adjusted emotionally, not happy, moods unpredictable, not stable …”
In short, a boatload of red flags. Then after a couple of good seasons he gets thrown a $37 million contract at the ripe old age of 22, donates $50,000 to the Myra Kraft Giving Back Fund and pays the appropriate lip service to Patriot family values.
It seems like a million years ago that another draft choice, Christian Peter, was jettisoned because the Krafts were people who wanted no part of a player who might bring shame to the family. That reality soon became myth and now even the myth is shattered.