Falcons Owner Arthur Blank Confronted Robert Kraft About The Patriots Savage 283-Diamond Super Bowl Ring

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What’s worse than your team having the biggest meltdown in sports history in front of 112 million people? Well, genocide. Terminal disease. Ok dude, I answer the questions around here.

The answer to the question is having to carry the weight of the disaster around with you for the rest of your life. You become the punchline that never gets old. You go to bed and wake up with the unshakable stench of regret and missed opportunity. You constantly wonder how. And why. The universe never gives you a sufficient answer. That loss is as much a part of you now as your arms and legs. It is cemented in your DNA, and the undying grief will be passed on through generations.

Is that enough torment? A normal person would say yes.

But Bob Kraft decided to twist the knife a bit more when he signed off on a Super Bowl ring containing 283 diamonds in each individual ring to commemorate the 28-3 comeback win. To contextualize how savage that move is, the Patriots sprung for 15,000 diamonds for the team’s 53-man roster alone.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Falcons owner Arthur Blank reveals that confronted Kraft about his not-so-subtle jab last August.

Blank needed to unburden himself of a minor beef with Kraft. It involved the aforementioned Super Bowl LI. After the Falcons blew a late 28-3 lead over the Patriots and lost in overtime, and “28-3” entered the lexicon of football taunts, Kraft ordered exactly 283 diamonds embedded into each of the 10-karat white gold Super Bowl rings he commissioned for the Patriots. Blank, who bought the Falcons in 2002, mostly took the loss and the attendant trolling in stride. But the ring stunt bothered him. He found it unnecessary and tacky. “I said to Robert, ‘You didn’t have to do the 28-3 in the ring,’” he told me recently. “It kind of pissed me off.”

Falcons players had to feign indifference to keep themselves from breaking down.

Don’t cry, Art. You’re still a billionaire.

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[h/t CBS Sports]