Going three years without winning a playoff game isn’t exactly a historic dry spell. The Lions have gone 30 years without a playoff win (and had gone more than 30 years without a playoff win before that one), while the Dolphins have gone 21 years and the Raiders 19. But in New England, three years feels like a long time.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft said that his team losing in the wild card round in 2019 and 2021, and not making the playoffs at all in 2020, has him upset.
“I’m a Patriot fan, big time, first,” Kraft said. “And more than anything, it bothers me that we haven’t been able to win a playoff game in the last three years. And I’m happy that we had, I think, a great draft last year, and it made up for what happened the previous four years or so. I look forward to hopefully having a great draft this year. That’s the only way you can build your team long term and consistently to have a chance of winning, is having a good draft.”
Bill Belichick makes the draft decisions in New England, and Kraft is acknowledging that Belichick’s recent track record hasn’t been great. But Kraft seems to think the franchise is moving in the right direction after a 10-7 season in 2021.