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Patriots owner Robert Kraft broke his silence, during a long conversation with Peter King of TheMMQB.com in which he defended quarterback Tom Brady and his team following their #DeflateGate punishment.

But there were several other parts of that conversation which were curious for what wasn’t said.

While the anger in his remarks about the Ted Wells Report and Brady’s four-game suspension was clear, Kraft wasn’t always as effusive. King writes that during a 50-minute phone conversation, “There was much Kraft wouldn’t say, and he was at times curt, which is rare for him.”

When asked if he would violate the league’s bylaws and try to take the league to court to overturn the penalties, Kraft replied: “I’m not going to comment on that at this point in time. I’m going to leave it. I won’t say.”

Asked why he suspended without pay John Jastremski and Jim McNally, despite the vigorous defense of their actions and intents in the team’s near-20,000-word rebuttal (The Wells Retort), Kraft refused to comment “for what he claimed were a variety of reasons.”

But perhaps the most ominous sign was when asked if he planned to remain as active in league affairs as he has been (he’s a member of five league committees, including the broadcast committee). To that one, Kraft replied: “I’d rather not get into that for a week or two.”

So while this week’s owners meeting in San Francisco will include discussions of the perpetual Los Angeles project and the all-important two-point conversion, there might be bigger issues percolating under the surface.