FOXBORO — The plan was that Sam Berns was going to be an honorary captain when the Patriots hosted the Indianapolis Colts in a divisional playoff game last night at Gillette Stadium.

Honorary captain? That’s a very nice title. But Patriots owner Robert Kraft predicted bigger and better titles for Sam Berns. Such as Congressman Sam Berns . . . Senator Sam Berns . . .

“I would love to have seen him in Washington,” Kraft was saying last night in his Gillette Stadium office, a couple of hours before kickoff. “He could get things done. He could build bridges. He had the intellectual prowess and knew how to deal with difficult situations.

“And he could make people feel good. If you ever heard him talk to our team, you’d know what I mean.”

When Kraft says Sam Berns could build bridges, we assume he meant symbolically and otherwise. He had that way about him. And though not listed on anybody’s roster, Sam Berns had become a genuine Boston sports figure in recent years.

Though afflicted with progeria, a rare premature-aging disease, the 17-year-old Foxboro resident was so upbeat, so forward-looking, Kraft said, that news of his death yesterday came as a shock to everyone — including those who were aware of the seriousness of his illness. Before kickoff, a video tribute was shown and a moment of silence held in Berns’ honor.

Kraft learned about Sam Berns the old-fashioned way: by reading about him in his local weekly newspaper.

“I saw a piece about him in the Foxboro Reporter, and I saw pictures of him,” Kraft said. “And I saw he was wearing Patriots stuff and read that he was a big fan.

“So I said, ‘Why don’t we have him come over one day when there’s no media here and just have him meet with the team,’ ” Kraft said. “First, I met with him here in my office. If all you ever saw of him was a picture, you couldn’t possibly believe what a personality he had.

“He was unbelievable. I fell in love with Sam Berns.”

Sam was to have returned to Gillette Stadium a couple of weeks ago for the Patriots’ regular-season finale against the Buffalo Bills. But he was in Florida at the time, and so a plan was hatched to have him serve as honorary captain last night.

Earlier in the week, the Patriots received word that Sam was having a bout with pneumonia. But he had made many comebacks over the years and, well, again, he always had that optimistic personality running at fourth gear. So perhaps there was an assumption on some level that he’d rally, again, and be at Gillette Stadium last night.

That all changed when Stacey James, the team’s media relations director, received news of Sam’s death via a text from Fox 25 news anchor Maria Stephanos, who lives in Foxboro. James then called Robert Kraft.

“I spoke with the family, and then I called my son Josh to make sure he knew, and he cried for three minutes over the phone,” Kraft said.

“This kid . . .” Kraft said. “This kid, he was going to make a difference. That’s what I keep going back to. Not just that we’ve lost him, but we’ve lost somebody who was going to make a difference. Do things.”

The son of Leslie Gordon and Scott Berns, Sam was not expected to live past the age of 13. But he was both patient and spokesman, so much so that soon he was meeting with members of the Patriots and Bruins, giving talks, getting involved in fundraising. The work he led in the fight against progeria inspired the documentary “Life According to Sam.”

Kraft ducked out of an NFL owners meeting in Washington to travel to New York for the HBO premiere. He also put up a $500,000 matching pledge to the Progeria Research Foundation.

“You want to be able to do things that have an immediate impact, but also for things you can relate to,” Kraft said. “Because of Sam, I could relate to this.”