Editor’s note: The Patriots have announced that linebackers coach Jerod Mayo will be the next head coach of the team. He will succeed Bill Belichick and will be the first Black head coach in Patriots history. A press conference with Robert Kraft, Jonathan Kraft and Mayo is scheduled for next Wednesday, Jan. 17, at Gillette Stadium. Read the AP story here.
For 19 years, the New England Patriots were the envy of the National Football League. Seventeen AFC East titles, 11 in a row from 2009-2019, an NFL record. Nine Super Bowl appearances. Six championships.
Robert Kraft was the brilliant owner, Bill Belichick the genius coach, Tom Brady the greatest quarterback of all time.
But today the Patriots are a 4-13 cellar dweller, a team with a losing record three of the last four seasons since Brady left, an offense that ranked last in the NFL this season in complete disarray.
And today Belichick is out. The dynasty he built — second in Boston history to the Celtics 11 NBA titles from 1957 to 1969 — officially over. His 24-year run finished.
The end came Thursday at high noon when Belichick and Kraft together announced that they had met Wednesday and mutually agreed to part ways amicably. Neither mentioned details of their mutual agreement. Belichick was under contract for 2024 for a reported $25 million.
This parting of ways should not have surprised anybody. The Patriots started trending down midway through the 2021 season, continued in 2022 and accelerated this season. In September they lost to Dallas, 38-3, and New Orleans, 34-0. They went to Munich in November and lost to the Colts, 10-6. Two weeks later they fell to the Giants, 10-7. In December they dropped a 6-0 stink bomb to the Chargers. They wrapped up this dismal season, the worst in Belichick’s tenure, last Sunday with a 17-3 loss to the Jets. The offense generated 176 yards. Total.
Speculation about Belichick’s future started mid-season. After the New Orleans game I wrote that he should retire at the end of the season or Kraft should terminate him. Like Tom Landry, Belichick stayed too long. And like Landry, it did not end well.
This season played like the football version of Succession, the HBO streaming hit about a powerful aging patriarch whose media empire is crumbling and whose family is back-stabbing dysfunctional. Like Logan Roy and Waystar Royco, the Patriots offered strong personalities, huge egos, public embarrassment, and office intrigue.
This cast included Belichick, the stubborn, crotchety head coach and general manager, trying to cling to power. Kraft, the CEO reluctant to let his stubborn coach go but desperate to get back on center stage. Jonathan Kraft, the CEO’s son and most likely successor anxious to move on.
Also starring were Jerod Mayo, the loyal son who played for Belichick and as an assistant coach is eager to show the family he is a worthy successor to Bill. Mike Vrabel, the prodigal son who played for Bill and wants to return after being fired by the Tennessee Titans. Mac Jones, the third-year quarterback drafted to succeed Brady but who showed time and again that he is not the answer. Young Bailey Zappe, the error-prone QB who proved this season after replacing Jones that he isn’t the answer, either.
Unlike Logan Roy and his kids, Belichick and Kraft shook hands before the cameras and left the stage at Gillette Stadium together.
Belichick viewed the day as one of gratitude and celebration. The success he and his team enjoyed exceeded his wildest expectations. He thanked Robert and the Kraft family for the opportunity. He thanked his assistant coaches for a “great team effort.” He thanked the Patriots support staff.
Belichick thanked the more than 1,000 players he coached and said he has so much respect for them, no matter how long or how short their stay in Foxboro.
Belichick even thanked the media with whom he had a cool relationship at best. “I do respect what you do,” he said.
Belichick saved his biggest thanks for Patriots fans. “The fans here are amazing. I have so many memories of the fans. The send-offs, the parades, the Sundays, whatever the situations are. The letters of support, seeing the fans away from here, at a gas station, at a grocery store, or wherever you bump into them. . . . So appreciative of the fans for all the support they’ve given me, my family and this football team.”
He added: “I will always be a Patriot. I look forward to coming back here. But at this time we’re going to move on. I look forward, am excited for the future.”
Coming back? I’d count on it. During his Monday media session, Belichick sounded like a football coach with a job to do, not a 71-year-old wealthy retiree who can’t wait for the stripers to run off Nantucket. He has 333 career victories, 14 shy of Don Shula’s NFL record 347.
“I’m going to do what I always do, which is every day I come in, work as hard as I can to help the team in whatever way I can. That’s what I’m going to continue to do,” he said.
The question now is which team? Seven openings exist.
Kraft described Belichick as a legendary icon in New England, a Pro Football Hall of Famer on the first ballot, the greatest coach of all time, all of which made his decision so hard, he said.
“It will be difficult to see him in a cutoff hoodie on the sideline,” Kraft said, “but I will always wish him continued success, except when he is playing our beloved Patriots.”
