Patriots owner Robert Kraft won his fifth Super Bowl ring on Sunday night when the Patriots beat the Falcons in Super Bowl LI. But unfortunately for him, he’s still going to need to win one more ring if he wants to cover all of the fingers on one of his hands, because a few years back, Kraft lost one of his rings.
Kraft actually knows exactly where the ring is. He just can't get it back. During a recent interview with NFL Network that centered around Super Bowl rings, Kraft revealed that he took it off during a business trip to Russia in 2005 and let Vladimir Putin wear the ring. It was the ring Kraft received after the Patriots won Super Bowl 39 against the Eagles. And Putin apparently liked the ring so much that he refused to take it off and give it back. So he still has the ring and, as of 2013, he had it out on display as if it belonged to him.
You would think that Kraft, who is a pretty powerful guy in his own right, would have the ability to make a few phone calls and get his ring back. But during an interview in 2013, Putin made it sound as if he considered the ring to be a gift. He also gave every indication that he intended on keeping the ring and even pretended that he had no clue who Kraft was. But Putin did come up with a way that he could repay Kraft for the "gift" he had given to him: He proposed making him a replica of his own Super Bowl ring.
"I will ask one of our businesses to make a really good and big thing, so everyone will see it as a luxury piece, made of quality metal and with a stone, so this piece will be passed from generation to generation in the team…This would be the smartest solution partners can ever achieve while tackling such a complicated international problem."
This doesn’t really sound like a "complicated international problem" at all. It sounds like Putin took the ring and plans on keeping it, no matter what Kraft says or does. So it’s a good thing Kraft continues to run an organization that keeps on giving him rings. Because the one from Super Bowl 39 is as good as gone.
