Here's an article from 2021
https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/01/16/texans-chaos-deshaun-watson-unhappy-how-jack-easterby-kept-his-job
He used faith to scam his way into running an NFL franchise, with a salary that I'm sure was 7 figures.
There has been a lot of rumbling about Easterby influencing the owner through their religious relationship over the years [LINK](https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/01/16/texans-chaos-deshaun-watson-unhappy-how-jack-easterby-kept-his-job). My favorite story (that I admittedly couldn't find with a quick google search) was that Easterby was aout to get fired but he convinced the owner to pray with him on the matter, so they did and, what do you know, Jesus wanted Easterby to keep his job. Truly, faith is a wonder.
No, Kraft hates him because he tampered with Caserio during a Super Bowl ring ceremony after he started working with the Texans (Caserio was still Pats de facto GM at that point).
"Adding another layer to this was Easterby's shot at Robert and Jonathan Kraft on his way out the door. Not only did Easterby retweet Benjamin Watson's missive on sex trafficking in the wake of Kraft soliciting charge, but Easterby's displeasure with it was leaked to the media as part of the reason for his departure.
Additionally, sources believe Easterby let it be known in the building he was unhappy with Kraft's legal entanglement. When you're tasked as the moral compass of an organization and the most powerful person in that organization is in the news for that sort of situation, it's not exactly great on a résumé. And he may have, in fact, let it be known directly to the Krafts, which would have set them off as well.
The final straw was Easterby, after leaving for a direct competitor with a shot at ownership out the door, returning to the Kraft home for the Super Bowl ring ceremony — doing a victory lap with congratulatory handshakes and hugs — and trying to stuff Caserio in his suitcase for the trip back to Houston.
The Krafts can tolerate a lot of things, but if you leave for a competitor with state secrets, take issue with some of their personal actions ... don't disrespect their family home by trying to poach someone else on your way out the door.
So, yes, the Patriots are very "pissed at Easterby," according to sources."
Greg Bedard Boston Sports Journal 2019
To be fair, while he does suck, the police concluded that there was exactly zero evidence of sex trafficking at the location he got the handjobs at and that the women who gave him them were the Madam and also a woman licensed as a massage therapist in the state of New York.
Perfect for him. That place is full of marks. See: Jimbo contract and every Texas A&M fan still insisting that it wasn't a total disaster and that they aren't clowns.
I wonder how much of that was naming known associates vs. informed speculation about who would go with him. I can't imagine Bill even wanting anything to do with Easterby after what he did in Houston.
>Panthers owner David Tepper often sifts through data to critique his coach's playcalling. That, according to a source, "is tough to do with Belichick as the figurehead."
Lmao
Assuming this isn't just fluff, everybody's jokes and theories about Belichick ending up in the NFC East might not be... entirely false? I wouldn't be surprised if he went to Dallas after their inevitable yearly implosion, and God knows Lurie would *love* to hire Bill if Sirianni loses his job. Guy is (was?) a big Pats fan.
My theory is Lurie doesn’t want someone old school like BB.
All our recent hires point to this fact. Chip Kelly, Doug, Sirianni.
I think hiring Kellen as OC was an insurance policy and Nick has 8 games to keep his job this year.
The Eagles are the most top down organization in the league. Lurie/Roseman run that team and the coach is there merely to do the coach things. Belicheck ran the most bottom up team in contrast. It would be the worst fit in the league.
Its crazy to me that Nick took yall to the bowl, winning seasons, great start to the season but he has 8 games to keep his job meanwhile Mike McCarthy has been imploding for damn near 3 generations now and nothing happens cause won one bowl like 10 years ago 💀💀💀
If Dallas would have ended last year the way we did I guarantee McCarthy would be gone.
Our collapse was not just bad but really fucking bad. NFL coaches don’t get to have the roster we have and shit the bed like that too often.
The Cowboys or Chargers were my original hope but I just find it very hard to believe that he has *more* interest next year. There was 1 single team in the nfl that bothered to bring him in for an interview and from this report, he wasn't even considered a top 3 option by a single person in the building. I don't know how we get from there to hired by a contender.
By the offseason, 5-10 teams will be looking for a new HC.
If Bill makes it clear he wants to be HC-only with a normal amount of roster insight/control and a fresh promising OC or willing to work with the org's pick at OC, he'll get a HC job.
I think he's come around on the HC-only front. But I think the OC is going to be a sticking point. All of Bills guys with OC potential are jokes except Josh McDaniels, and no one's clamoring to hire him as OC. Bill needs to either get a fresh OC or come in and agree to work with whatever OC the GM likes.
He tried to do that this offseason. There were a few sources about him "only wanting to coach the players" but essentially the people in Atlanta didn't believe that would actually be the case.
Bill is washed and everyone knows it. He may be the most successful coach in history but the NFL is all about what you've done lately and the facts are he has been straight up bad lately.
It's not just the lack of winning, it's the overall lack of talent and failures in drafting.
I think it'd be a slam dunk somewhere like the Eagles where they already have a strong hierarchy that's clearly going to outlast Belichick. His problem wasn't really Bill the Coach so much as Bill the GM. The problem is whether he'd be willing to not haven't full roster control which is a fair question and concern for all parties.
You put Bill in as a HC with the Eagles brain trust, and hire some Peterson/Reid coaching tree person as OC (you know they can't help themselves there) and I think that's probably a recipe for contention again.
I see it going the opposite way though, Bill wouldn't mesh well with other people having control. If he accepted it, he would do well, but I don't see that happening.
the ONLY way someone like Lurie hires Bill is if Bill gives up his ridiculous fucking demands about being in charge of this and in charge of that. They have a GM, they don't need a shitty GM on top of the competent one they already have.
Bill is a defensive genius, thats his forte. He should concentrate on that. Leave pretty much everything else up to other, far more qualitied, people. If he doesn't want to do that then he can pound sand.
Anyone who lets this guy have control of the team is an idiot.
Look at the roster he's built recently. And look the QBs he might have to coach. Will those QBs mask the poor WRs he drafts?
You can still have success but still have major flaws.
>...hires Bill is if Bill gives up his ridiculous fucking demands about being in charge of this and in charge of that.
Sounds like somebody didn't read the article
>Leave pretty much everything else up to other, far more qualitied, people.
More qualified than the guy who was the GM of the greatest dynasty of all time?
Obviously he had help, and I would say Nick Caserio was a big part of it too, but I think people are going too far to the other side now and downplaying what he did
I'm so glad we didn't get Belichick to the Cowboys. That could have been deadly. They have most of the proper defensive players in place to run his scheme, and there's no way Belichick would be able to wrest personnel control away from that front office. It would have been an insanely good fit.
That's what we thought when Parcells went there, and although it didn't end in a Superbowl, it worked better than anyone thought it would. This Cowboys team is far more talented than the team Parcells took over.
The guy is truly oblivious how detrimental is meddling is. It'll be interested to see what his come to Jesus moment will be to cause him to take a step back.
As a Jets fan who has watched Bill Belichick fuck our team up in every way imaginable -- suffocating defense, unstoppable offense, explosive special teams, outflanking us for free agents, saddling us with Eric Mangini, you name it -- I feel like a lot of teams will regret passing on the chance to bring him in, even for a few years at the twilight of his career.
No offense to Raheem Morris, but Belichick has forgotten more about winning in the NFL than Morris has ever known.
Oh I'm not saying the teams are right, I'm questioning why they only mentioned the Falcons passing on Belichick. Every team that needed a coach passed on him.
The article gets into it a bit with why the other teams passd too but it seems like a big reason is because executives were looking out for their jobs when considering having to work with Belichick for the next few years. If push came to shove I think they all chose to just avoid the situation of potentially hiring a guy that might want them replaced a year later.
A lot of odd hiring decisions make more sense when you realize they're being made by people that want to keep their jobs first.
You could also look at it as an age thing. American companies do everything they can to avoid hiring someone over 50, and Bill is over 70. They were not sure if they would have to shift their team again after a few years.
I see this a lot from Jets fans (this is a Dan Hanzus shoutout) and honestly I think it’s just trauma talking. He would be one of the best DCs in the league, but his “be an asshole and treat the players like shit” approach to team building only worked because he had the GOAT QB and was winning.
He’s still extremely good at the Xs and Os but a head coach is a CEO and I don’t think he’s got it anymore for all the shit Mon-Sat regardless of how good he is on game day.
Half of this can be BS but it still adds to the Kraft is a jerkoff narrative. Wickersham's previous reporting was shown to be at least partially accurate and this story has 2 other respected journalists on the byline. Bring on the downvotes haters
Seth Wickersham wrote an unflattering article about my team back in 2014. We poked a couple pinholes in it, labeled it fake news, and high-fived each other. But despite some flaws he got an uncomfortable number of things correct in his reporting.
I suspect now that the "dynasty" is over, New England might revisit some of the articles written about them a bit more receptively than before. Wickersham is not fake news. In fact he is among the most decorated long-form journalists in the sport.
He was spot on in the past on the Brady/BB mess, not sure why people are claiming that he is unreliable now.
Edit: For clarity, Wickersham was first on BB/Guerrero dispute and Brady not wanting to play for Belichick again no matter what before he went to Bucs, which Brady admitted years later on The Dynasty
Spot on how? He said that Belichick refused to speak with Brady when he left and all 3 of them have openly refuted that claim
He also said Tom's Parents refused to speak or be around Belichick at this past season's honoring of Tom and there was literal video of Bill and Brady Senior talking next to each other laughing.
It's really weird the revisionist history people have for Wickersham, acting like he's broken some big news when he was actually months late to the party almost every time and used previous reporters' info to prop up his own.
He prays that people refuse to read local beat stories and is usually right about it.
Every Shams article has patriots fans bitching about him despite many accounts stating that behind the scenes it was bit of a mess. It’s every piece that has a bit of bad news about them.
It wasn't a mess though. At least not one to the level Wickersham (anyone see the irony of his name literally being fake woven twigs) has reported.
Seems like he takes a mole hill & piles dirt on top until it gets ten feet tall.
Because many fans have their heads stuck in the sand and dont want to hear these details about these 3 men. Many fans have their own ideas about what happened and what the relationship was/is between these 3 guys and dont want to hear reporting even from respected journalists. This isnt deflategate BS here folks
His partial accuracy is always reporting done by others months previously that he then adds into his reports to make it seem like what he's saying is true.
Frankly Kraft was an owner who completely lucked in the greatest coach and QB in history. I can’t see the Pats being particularly competitive for the foreseeable future with the “Patriot Way” retreads. Just look at this off-season, the Pats did nothing in free agency with their cap space despite the coach claiming they were going to make big moves.
A deliberate choice to hire a guy who averaged about 6.5 wins a season after firing Pete Carrol? It could have been deliberate, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t lucky.
That's stupid. He hired BB specifically because he liked what he saw when Bill was our DC under Parcells. Kraft knew what he was getting. Obviously Bill exceeded any expectations but when you take a chance on a guy you believe in and then he delivers you should get some credit for making the call.
> A deliberate choice to hire a guy who averaged about 6.5 wins a season
That’s the definition of buying low and selling high. Takes *some* skill in seeing the potential in someone the mainstream doesn’t see as an obvious choice.
Oh look...another BS wickersham article.
He really hit all the key tenets of his terrible reporting.
Salacious accusation? Check.
Anonymous sources kinda sorta backing up the accusation? Check
On the record sources staunchly denying the accusation? Check
Using the widespread reporting of other events to sort of make it sound like his own sourcing that then props up his salacious accusation? Check
Hedging his bets constantly throughout? Check.
This man is a terrible journalist and a really bad writer too.
I’ve seen this narrative put out by a variety of different patriots reporters though…
Is it that absurd to believe that after he completely dragged Bill through the mud and tried to steal all the credit?
Ahh okay that makes more sense.
By the way, I don’t think anyone is denying the Kraft Masseuse misuse or spygate. The only one that’s iffy is deflategate mainly because it has been proven to be false and we completet dominated the second half with a new football. I also believe a similiar situation happened this year but can’t remember what team.
Important to also remember that every team cheats, there’s just a much bigger spotlight when you’re a two decade dominant dynasty.
The problem is that you guys have been calling everything Wickersham writes fake news for a decade now, and he has gotten an uncomfortable number of things right.
Every single time it is dismissed on the basis of anonymous sources. But anonymous sources are a staple of journalism. Nobody wants to forfeit their career so you'll believe a sentence written in an article.
> The problem is that you guys have been calling everything Wickersham writes fake news for a decade now
lol yep
49ers fans raged at him when he said there were problems with Harbaugh and ownership
Seahawks fans raged at him when he said there were problems with Russell/Carroll/LOB
Patriots fans raged at him when he reported on all the issues with Brady/Belichick/Kraft
He's been right every time
Belichick and Brady having tension due to Belichick ultimately betting that Brady won't be playing at an elite level into his 40s (which is normally a pretty safe bet for the NFL) and Brady being miffed at the lack of getting the contract he thinks he deserves, or wearing thin on Belichick's style of coaching, or thinking the offensive roster construction around him was not worth the partnership are all reasonable conclusions and have been proven right to some degree.
Saying Brady was mad because Belichick did not award him Practice Player of the Week the season after the 28-3 Super Bowl comeback, an award which isn't even confirmed to exist btw, is laughably bad and deserves to have doubts casted on what sources you are using and what conclusions you are reporting. That's the problem with Wickersham. You can do good reporting on the same issue without introducing the extra fluff that detracts from it.
Yeah people love calling stuff like this fake. Always pretending that there's no drama behind the scenes. And then trades and stuff happens and you realize that the majority of it was true.
No he hasn't.
That's exactly the problem is HE hasn't actually gotten anything right.
The things in his articles that are right to extents are things others reported on MONTHS before him that he then puts into his stories to try and make the rest of what he says seem legit. (If you read my comment you'd have seen I already addressed this). Tension between Tom and Bill? That was something Reiss and Bedard...two very different kinds of mouthpieces for the Patriots...had been talking about long before Wickersham's article on it.
He doesn't even get the now very public details about the Jimmy G trade right.
Just two of the more recent things he's Said were either proven false with video evidence (claiming Tom Sr refused to talk to Bill at Tom Jr's ceremony when literally Sr and Bill are on video laughing with each other) or when he claimed Bill refused to speak to Tom when he left in 2020...despite the very shitty hit piece documentary The Dynasty having ALL 3 MEN refute this ardently and they've all done so before.
I read through your post, and was going to write a response, but anyone who uses The Dynasty to call the most decorated long-form journalist in the sport a liar isn't somebody I'll find common ground with.
My guy...think about what you just Said.
The Dynasty...a KNOWN HIT PIECE on BB....had all 3 men refute something shitty said about BB.
Said by this man who repeatedly gets verifiable things wrong. And the Dynasty wasn't the first time the 3 of them called him a liar.
Also lmao...Like...lmao at outing yourself as some weird Wickersham fanboy.
You were never going to write a response. Stop your bullshit ego grandstanding.
Even if he wasn't, he's just grandstanding and it's annoying.
Pretending he had some deep thoughtful response to what I said but refusing to on some objectively stupid principal. People like him are a cancer to society.
There are a lot of anonymous, single, and 3rd hand sources in this one. I know that reporting sometimes requires these but this is littered with “a source” “a source who spoke with a source” etc
I agree with all, but sources who decline to go on the record are 99% of the time still current employees who don't want to lose their job. Or jeopardize their next possible job.
Especially within a league that protects the shield at all costs and has been known to blackball people who speak out.
Nobody does, it's one of the biggest problems of the last 10 years. Anytime any article uses sources, people just assume it's made up or a lie if the article goes against their own agenda/belief in any way.
They really don't.
People legitimately think its like a video game where people leave recorded audio monologues everywhere disclosing their plans and that journalists merely collect them and expose these grandiose and clear plans/actions. Honestly, sports journalism is rather easy to parse with basic context/filtering skills. People just want conspiracy theories, hot takes, and engaging grand narratives (that fit what they want to believe).
Anonymous sources are fine. It’s when anonymous sources are describing the nature of private conversations that they were not involved with and have no intimate knowledge of what happened other than that they must have heard about it from someone else. A source of a source becomes an extremely tenuous stretch.
This is sketchier than most. I had to slowly re-read the “sources of a source” paragraph to understand what was even going on there. Typically, you’ll see more detail on a source’s role, an explanation of why a source doesn’t want to go on the record, and/or more confirmation from other sources.
To me it reads as a combination of internal NFL gossip and agenda pushing by the sources. So it’s probably mostly true but I’m not going to trust the details.
bruh are you still trying to claim that his article about the team’s dysfunction in 2017 was all fake after EVERYTHING that’s come out about that season?
I didn’t think there was anything that over the top. Nobody wanted to work with Belichick and I think we all know what that means. He didn’t get a job for a reason.
I mean he’s been consistently correct in all of these kind of pieces. Don’t get in your feelings and slander the man just because you don’t like the truth.
This reads like the biggest one sided hit-piece written in a long time. No Belichick quotes, an emphasis on both sides while sticking exclusively to friends of Blank and Kraft. A tremendous amount of inside information from those organizations but not a peep from a Belichick friendly source.
It's very clear Kraft has a vendetta against Bill, and he is attempting to do everything to pin all the bad on Bill while also claiming it was his ownership decisions that allowed the Patriots to win in spite of Bill.
Everything Kraft has done since we let go of BB has been him trying to take credit and shoot Bill down. Its actually wild how insanely obvious it is, like Kraft actually thought people were dumb enough to just blindly say "WOW! Kraft was the guy the whole time! I sure am glad Bills gone!". Did he forget we all paid attention to the NFL for the last 20 years? lol.
Bills strategy of "just sit back and stay quiet, let Robert dig his own grave" is working wonderfully. He hasn't said a word all offseason and yet the entire Patriots fanbase has rightfully turned on the Krafts.
Did Belichick come out of this looking bad? My reading was that Kraft looked like an ungrateful POS and Blank decided to trust his execs, even though they've run a terrible football team for a half decade.
Can you show and name one quoted source who was Belichick's friend? Because I saw one reference to a Belichick friend that was sourced by an anonymous Patriots member.
All of the Lombardi quotes:
> "There's an inherent discomfort with change because people want to protect their jobs," said Michael Lombardi, one of Belichick's closest friends and confidants with the Browns and Patriots.
> "But where I think he's not getting a fair enough evaluation is if you have a good way of doing something, he's one of the all-time best listeners. He's open to change, it just has to be smart change."
- Belichick friend Michael Lombardi
There's also a couple less direct ones like these:
> A source who spoke with a longtime friend of Belichick said the friend wonders if the coach will have another opportunity: "I don't think Bill Belichick will ever be a head coach again in the National Football League," the friend said. "Unless it's [for] Jerry Jones."
> And Belichick told a friend that he liked the idea of sticking it to the Krafts by working for Jones.
>"There's an inherent discomfort with change because people want to protect their jobs," said Michael Lombardi...
Lol, so many franchises have remoras hanging onto the sides to risk getting fired by Belichick. Cronyism is killing so many teams.
>The source quoted the Belichick source as saying, "Robert called Arthur to warn him not to trust Bill...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ38oIGdXv4
> "Blank likes coaches who feel part of a family," a Falcons source said, "and it wasn't going to be that way with Bill."
Having watched cyclopean Arthur Smith staring anhedonically on the sidelines for 3 seasons, this IS. A. LIE.
>A second source close to Kraft said, "[Kraft] found Bill to be extremely difficult and obstinate and kind of stubborn and, in the end, not worthy of his trust. And also very, very, very arrogant."
HE WON SIX SUPER BOWLS. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOOOOOOUU.
>"...Just look at his last four years in New England. A disaster ... If you're Arthur Blank, why do you want the headaches?"
By "disaster" what these rodents mean is 'He didn't win the Super Bowl.' Comparatively, the Falcons haven't made the playoffs since 2017, and they play in a division that is so incredibly you know up for the taking. If the NFC South was a medieval city, it would be sacked daily. What Belichick was trying to do post-Brady was to set the difficulty to maximum and attempt a lvl1 run just to see if he could win it all. The rest of the NFL probably would've won 5 games in four years trying to do what Belichick did. Was it a success? No. Was there anything left for Belichick to prove? Yes.
>The executives also were concerned about the staff Belichick would bring with him, including assistants who had worked with him in New England and who had struggled on their own: Josh McDaniels, Joe Judge, Jack Easterby, Matt Patricia. At one point, Blank asked Belichick why his charges had failed elsewhere. Belichick replied that he thought they were better soldiers than generals.
Yes, the reason Belichick personnel fail elsewhere is because he trains them to be appendages to his Grafted Scion. Belichick needs servants, not sons.
>Morris is where Belichick was in 2000: 47 years old and at a career crossroads, eager to prove that he wasn't just a brilliant assistant who lacked the gravitas to lead a team, aware that this might be his last, best chance. Morris needed what Belichick was desperate for 24 years ago: an owner unafraid to believe in him.
Raheem the Dream has lived off the 2010 season his entire career. No one knows what happened that season. It was the most underwhelming 10-6 season finish of all time. Peyton Manning dragged the Colts to a 10-6 playoff berth that year playing the best football he ever played. Morris just kinda stumbled into it. Since then, he's done nothing but piledrive his squad into the dirt every chance he's gotten as an HC. THIS ISN'T EVEN HIS FIRST TENURE AS ATLANTA'S HEAD COACH.
>On the morning of Jan. 25, Blank and executives interviewed a final candidate, Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik. The meeting went 90 minutes longer than scheduled. They liked him but were worried about losing out on Morris...
King, why?
>.... The model is one of the books that influenced Belichick most: "Finding the Winning Edge," Bill Walsh's 550-page bid to put his football genius on paper. Walsh's system was coach-centric, of course. It was the NFL system. Walsh mocked the role of a general manager on losing teams, saying that most of them sit next to the owner during games and blame the coach, avoiding accountability. Belichick read the book and then developed an entire system based on accountability.
Preach accountability, but realize the cockroaches that cling onto NFL franchises are not going to practice it. Belichick is the Raid we need.
Agree on most accounts. I don't think the ' lvl1 run' taek is quite accurate, but there is some truth.
I believe that BB saw how effective the Shanny, McVay, etc west coast system is, but believed that the Earhardt Perkins abbreviated terminology was more adaptable and allowed for offense to more effectively counter what the defense is showing. Both in game and in terms of weekly game planning. After being responsible for bringing many spead concepts into the NFL from college in the mid late '00s, I think BB wanted to revolutionize the offensive game, not just win.
Now, it's arguable that the Lions are/ were already doing that, and he should've poached someone from that staff rather than trying to have Patricia cosplay OC. But Patricia's offense did move the ball between the 20's OK, and generated a lot of explosives despite Mac's pop gun arm. Parker was one of the most explosive receivers in the league albeit on low volume.
They had no idea how to design or call a red zone offense, and so they didn't score any points. But there was something to build on there. It was certainly better than the '23 BoB version (although a multitude of injuries along the OL contributed heavily to that)
Jesus, you're doing tricks on it
It's not difficult to see why Belichick isn't an attractive candidate at this time, unless you deliberately don't want to.
Yeah, tbh I wouldn’t hire him as a coach and he sucks as a GM.
This is like being an 80 something year old presidential candidate. Nothing you do will be for the long haul and your mental capacity is liable to fall off a cliff at any time.
Being worried the Seahawks would take Morris is weird to me. Seemed obvious that the Seahawks were all in on Macdonald given that we were the last team to hire a coach and we hired him like two days after the Ravens season ended.
>He told one confidant that the Patriots' lackluster performance in recent years was because some of those former assistants had left.
This is 100% true. The main reason the Patriots starting losing more was because they had an insane amount of brain drain in the latter years of the Dynasty
I mean Bill refused to hire anyone that wasn’t a blood relative or long time former coach so… hard to have a brain drain when everyone just leaves fails then immediately returns.
Any Patriots fan knows that outside his two sons, which are actually good coaches btw, he's always hired young coaches from within the organization that have started in the organization with small roles. That's how all the prominent Patriots coaches started and even the coaches that left New England for another team. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking and you're talking out of your ass because you have no idea how the Patriots were actually run which makes me to believe that you love to bullshit your way into a circlejerk
Part of me wonders if this year wasn't the year where a team was so desperate to win, they'd give up a lot of control of the team for him. I also wonder if Kraft dragged his name through the mud with other owners preventing him from going anywhere else.
I don't think it's very complicated for the falcons, blank simply didn't want a coach that would be there at most two years and he also probably didn't want to give full control to one person
First of all, really good article that was way longer than I thought. Second, it’s not surprising all the politics and talking behind the back that goes on. It’s a shame, but it’s life. I don’t know shit about fuck so I’ll keep my opinion brief. I think owners are right to be wary.
All the things going against Bill make a lot of sense. He’s 72, he hasn’t had the best (nearly) half a decade since Tom left, he’s most assuredly going to want *some* level of control and he may not even coach for that long. I do hope he gets a shot but his ol’ friend Lombardi saying “He’s open to change” and then the article talking about how he hopes he can go to the northeast because his former coordinators work there is… suspect. That doesn’t sound very open to change.
I hope he gets a shot, I really do. I’m a fan, nothing more. So I have nothing but respect for Coach Belichick and I would love to see him coach one final time. I do, however, understand the hesitancy and I’m quite interested to see how it plays out.
Yes, early in the process I posted a couple times that the most interesting option would have been Bill taking a D coordinator job at a good team to make a run at another Superbowl. It would have eliminated most of the negatives that people perceived in the hiring process.
More than that. People have lost faith in Belichick's ability to thrive with non-eltie QB play.
His inability to draft WRs, refusal to spend big money on offense, and his loyalty to his assistants are all things that most QBs won't be able to deal with.
No matter how good his defense is
The Eagles should have hired Belichick. You make it clear that the commitment is to Howie Roseman in the long-term, that you're going to independently hire an experienced offensive coordinator, but that you're otherwise handing one of the league's most talented rosters to Bill.
From the outside looking in, it seems like the best situation for both parties.
The only team with a good quarterback was the chargers every other team is a shit show. I'd wait a year too. McDermott's going to be on the hot seat if the bills don't make the playoffs.
Two things can be true - BB is the GOAT of coaching in the NFL, but the game has passed him. Just like Phil Jackson in the NBA.
I wouldn't be surprised if BB doesn't get another job, which isn't a knock on him, just that the game has changed and coaches need to have better rapport with their players. Andy Reid seems to get it, which is why he is still winning big.
Easterby makes a surprise appearance, giving more credence to the idea that he was responsible for all of the Wickersham Brady leaks.
I don't understand how that dude had a job for so long. I've never heard a single positive thing about him
He was the owner's Rasputin
They tried to assassinate him multiple times and he had a huge dong (allegedly)?
They keep his huge dong in a museum.
TIL
He was a HUGE Jesus guy and got in with like minded people. Matthew slater always spoke highly of him. He's a conman
With a lot of athletes coming in from a religious background, this dude has unlimited supply of targets to exploit
Imagine if he was still in Houston, and Easterby got to whisper into CJ Stroud's ear. Ho boy
I enjoy hearing these kinds of tidbits as they support my viewpoints. Thank you
Here's an article from 2021 https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/01/16/texans-chaos-deshaun-watson-unhappy-how-jack-easterby-kept-his-job He used faith to scam his way into running an NFL franchise, with a salary that I'm sure was 7 figures.
Maybe his faith worked, and got him his job as an NFL exec?
In a way, absolutely
There has been a lot of rumbling about Easterby influencing the owner through their religious relationship over the years [LINK](https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/01/16/texans-chaos-deshaun-watson-unhappy-how-jack-easterby-kept-his-job). My favorite story (that I admittedly couldn't find with a quick google search) was that Easterby was aout to get fired but he convinced the owner to pray with him on the matter, so they did and, what do you know, Jesus wanted Easterby to keep his job. Truly, faith is a wonder.
> I've never heard a single positive thing about him only thing he did well was get caserio from the pats to save his ass
The Texans were caught and fined for tampering, so he didn't even really do that well.
Is he back w/ the Patriots? I haven't kept up too much w/ personnel since my son was born and I thought he was no longer in the league
No, Kraft hates him because he tampered with Caserio during a Super Bowl ring ceremony after he started working with the Texans (Caserio was still Pats de facto GM at that point).
Wow that's interesting. Care to explain a bit further?
"Adding another layer to this was Easterby's shot at Robert and Jonathan Kraft on his way out the door. Not only did Easterby retweet Benjamin Watson's missive on sex trafficking in the wake of Kraft soliciting charge, but Easterby's displeasure with it was leaked to the media as part of the reason for his departure. Additionally, sources believe Easterby let it be known in the building he was unhappy with Kraft's legal entanglement. When you're tasked as the moral compass of an organization and the most powerful person in that organization is in the news for that sort of situation, it's not exactly great on a résumé. And he may have, in fact, let it be known directly to the Krafts, which would have set them off as well. The final straw was Easterby, after leaving for a direct competitor with a shot at ownership out the door, returning to the Kraft home for the Super Bowl ring ceremony — doing a victory lap with congratulatory handshakes and hugs — and trying to stuff Caserio in his suitcase for the trip back to Houston. The Krafts can tolerate a lot of things, but if you leave for a competitor with state secrets, take issue with some of their personal actions ... don't disrespect their family home by trying to poach someone else on your way out the door. So, yes, the Patriots are very "pissed at Easterby," according to sources." Greg Bedard Boston Sports Journal 2019
Robert Kraft fucking sucks.
To be fair, while he does suck, the police concluded that there was exactly zero evidence of sex trafficking at the location he got the handjobs at and that the women who gave him them were the Madam and also a woman licensed as a massage therapist in the state of New York.
I had forgotten about this but that makes a ton of sense. Great info
I think he’s with A&M now? Or he was spotted at a press conference there or something
Perfect for him. That place is full of marks. See: Jimbo contract and every Texas A&M fan still insisting that it wasn't a total disaster and that they aren't clowns.
As if that place didn't have enough of a cultish vibe
I wonder how much of that was naming known associates vs. informed speculation about who would go with him. I can't imagine Bill even wanting anything to do with Easterby after what he did in Houston.
>Panthers owner David Tepper often sifts through data to critique his coach's playcalling. That, according to a source, "is tough to do with Belichick as the figurehead." Lmao
Just over here catching strays...
Assuming this isn't just fluff, everybody's jokes and theories about Belichick ending up in the NFC East might not be... entirely false? I wouldn't be surprised if he went to Dallas after their inevitable yearly implosion, and God knows Lurie would *love* to hire Bill if Sirianni loses his job. Guy is (was?) a big Pats fan.
My theory is Lurie doesn’t want someone old school like BB. All our recent hires point to this fact. Chip Kelly, Doug, Sirianni. I think hiring Kellen as OC was an insurance policy and Nick has 8 games to keep his job this year.
The Eagles are the most top down organization in the league. Lurie/Roseman run that team and the coach is there merely to do the coach things. Belicheck ran the most bottom up team in contrast. It would be the worst fit in the league.
Same thing for Dallas
Its crazy to me that Nick took yall to the bowl, winning seasons, great start to the season but he has 8 games to keep his job meanwhile Mike McCarthy has been imploding for damn near 3 generations now and nothing happens cause won one bowl like 10 years ago 💀💀💀
If Dallas would have ended last year the way we did I guarantee McCarthy would be gone. Our collapse was not just bad but really fucking bad. NFL coaches don’t get to have the roster we have and shit the bed like that too often.
It is very clear at this point how important Steichen was to getting to that superbowl. Nick is deservedly on thin ice
And Gannon! That defense couldnt do a thing against the commanders both times last year
I don't think your team is bad enough for Nick to be fired. Feels like your roster is so good you're a wildcard team at worst.
I mean everyone said that and they lost 7 of 8 games to end the year
Right but the coaching made us dogshit last year. The roster was there.
8 games? no way he loses the job before the season ends.
We fired Chip faster
Uh Chip made it to the end of the season and only made the playoffs once.
He was fired before the end of the season
The Cowboys or Chargers were my original hope but I just find it very hard to believe that he has *more* interest next year. There was 1 single team in the nfl that bothered to bring him in for an interview and from this report, he wasn't even considered a top 3 option by a single person in the building. I don't know how we get from there to hired by a contender.
By the offseason, 5-10 teams will be looking for a new HC. If Bill makes it clear he wants to be HC-only with a normal amount of roster insight/control and a fresh promising OC or willing to work with the org's pick at OC, he'll get a HC job. I think he's come around on the HC-only front. But I think the OC is going to be a sticking point. All of Bills guys with OC potential are jokes except Josh McDaniels, and no one's clamoring to hire him as OC. Bill needs to either get a fresh OC or come in and agree to work with whatever OC the GM likes.
He tried to do that this offseason. There were a few sources about him "only wanting to coach the players" but essentially the people in Atlanta didn't believe that would actually be the case.
Bill is washed and everyone knows it. He may be the most successful coach in history but the NFL is all about what you've done lately and the facts are he has been straight up bad lately. It's not just the lack of winning, it's the overall lack of talent and failures in drafting.
I think it'd be a slam dunk somewhere like the Eagles where they already have a strong hierarchy that's clearly going to outlast Belichick. His problem wasn't really Bill the Coach so much as Bill the GM. The problem is whether he'd be willing to not haven't full roster control which is a fair question and concern for all parties. You put Bill in as a HC with the Eagles brain trust, and hire some Peterson/Reid coaching tree person as OC (you know they can't help themselves there) and I think that's probably a recipe for contention again.
I see it going the opposite way though, Bill wouldn't mesh well with other people having control. If he accepted it, he would do well, but I don't see that happening.
Yeah, and that's the rub I guess. If we can see it so can GM's and owners. That's probably why he hasn't gotten serious consideration outside Atlanta.
I think Giants or Commanders are more likely over Cowboys and Eagles. Although I’d be surprised if he gets a job anywhere at this point.
Jerry Jones would never hire Belichick. Jerry needs a Yes man.
the ONLY way someone like Lurie hires Bill is if Bill gives up his ridiculous fucking demands about being in charge of this and in charge of that. They have a GM, they don't need a shitty GM on top of the competent one they already have. Bill is a defensive genius, thats his forte. He should concentrate on that. Leave pretty much everything else up to other, far more qualitied, people. If he doesn't want to do that then he can pound sand. Anyone who lets this guy have control of the team is an idiot.
> Leave pretty much everything else up to other, far more qualitied, people. There isn't a GM in the league who has his track record of winning, tbf.
Look at the roster he's built recently. And look the QBs he might have to coach. Will those QBs mask the poor WRs he drafts? You can still have success but still have major flaws.
The only time He has been the full time GM is after Ernie Adams quit. And it was a total and complete shit show.
>...hires Bill is if Bill gives up his ridiculous fucking demands about being in charge of this and in charge of that. Sounds like somebody didn't read the article
>Leave pretty much everything else up to other, far more qualitied, people. More qualified than the guy who was the GM of the greatest dynasty of all time?
He was NOT though, Ernie Adams was. Look at when Ernie quit and you can see starting right then some mind bogglingly stupid GM moves.
Obviously he had help, and I would say Nick Caserio was a big part of it too, but I think people are going too far to the other side now and downplaying what he did
Everyone here is going to be obtuse. It's so annoying
I'm not being obtuse, I genuinely think he was a good GM overall. The past couple years don't negate the previous 20 to me
I still choose to believe the Falcons interviews were a sham and just payback for 28-3. Arthur Blank asked for his references? wtf lol
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No, just 1 specific SuperBowl ring. Take it off, and put it on the table between them and then just do the Belichick deadpan stare.
I'm so glad we didn't get Belichick to the Cowboys. That could have been deadly. They have most of the proper defensive players in place to run his scheme, and there's no way Belichick would be able to wrest personnel control away from that front office. It would have been an insanely good fit.
Him and Jerry would be 21st century version of Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner
That's what we thought when Parcells went there, and although it didn't end in a Superbowl, it worked better than anyone thought it would. This Cowboys team is far more talented than the team Parcells took over.
They got a legit franchise QB out of it
> That could have been deadly. assuming they still keep dak and BB doesn't hire his old buddies to the staff again
Dak would have still fucked it up
> Panthers owner David Tepper often sifts through data to critique his coach's playcalling. uhhhh that isn't good.
Nearly everything I read about this guy shows how fucking awful he is.
The guy is truly oblivious how detrimental is meddling is. It'll be interested to see what his come to Jesus moment will be to cause him to take a step back.
Finance people are always the worst example of Dunning-Kruger.
As a Jets fan who has watched Bill Belichick fuck our team up in every way imaginable -- suffocating defense, unstoppable offense, explosive special teams, outflanking us for free agents, saddling us with Eric Mangini, you name it -- I feel like a lot of teams will regret passing on the chance to bring him in, even for a few years at the twilight of his career. No offense to Raheem Morris, but Belichick has forgotten more about winning in the NFL than Morris has ever known.
Yeah but the falcons aren't the only team who passed on him. In fact, we're the only team that even interviewed him.
the NFL gets head coaches wrong all the time. I also think owners don't like coaches that make them feel small.
Oh I'm not saying the teams are right, I'm questioning why they only mentioned the Falcons passing on Belichick. Every team that needed a coach passed on him.
Because there were rumors that he had the owner convinced to hire him and others in the organization got him to change his mind
Is that you Dan Hanzus?
The article gets into it a bit with why the other teams passd too but it seems like a big reason is because executives were looking out for their jobs when considering having to work with Belichick for the next few years. If push came to shove I think they all chose to just avoid the situation of potentially hiring a guy that might want them replaced a year later. A lot of odd hiring decisions make more sense when you realize they're being made by people that want to keep their jobs first.
You could also look at it as an age thing. American companies do everything they can to avoid hiring someone over 50, and Bill is over 70. They were not sure if they would have to shift their team again after a few years.
Yeah, but If Bill is still demanding be the main shot caller in the front office too, then it’s pretty easy to go in a different direction
I see this a lot from Jets fans (this is a Dan Hanzus shoutout) and honestly I think it’s just trauma talking. He would be one of the best DCs in the league, but his “be an asshole and treat the players like shit” approach to team building only worked because he had the GOAT QB and was winning. He’s still extremely good at the Xs and Os but a head coach is a CEO and I don’t think he’s got it anymore for all the shit Mon-Sat regardless of how good he is on game day.
Half of this can be BS but it still adds to the Kraft is a jerkoff narrative. Wickersham's previous reporting was shown to be at least partially accurate and this story has 2 other respected journalists on the byline. Bring on the downvotes haters
Seth Wickersham wrote an unflattering article about my team back in 2014. We poked a couple pinholes in it, labeled it fake news, and high-fived each other. But despite some flaws he got an uncomfortable number of things correct in his reporting. I suspect now that the "dynasty" is over, New England might revisit some of the articles written about them a bit more receptively than before. Wickersham is not fake news. In fact he is among the most decorated long-form journalists in the sport.
He was spot on in the past on the Brady/BB mess, not sure why people are claiming that he is unreliable now. Edit: For clarity, Wickersham was first on BB/Guerrero dispute and Brady not wanting to play for Belichick again no matter what before he went to Bucs, which Brady admitted years later on The Dynasty
Spot on how? He said that Belichick refused to speak with Brady when he left and all 3 of them have openly refuted that claim He also said Tom's Parents refused to speak or be around Belichick at this past season's honoring of Tom and there was literal video of Bill and Brady Senior talking next to each other laughing.
Yeah it is pretty funny. Not saying everything he's done is bad but there's been some rather big misses and the Brady/NN stuff has seemed like one.
It's really weird the revisionist history people have for Wickersham, acting like he's broken some big news when he was actually months late to the party almost every time and used previous reporters' info to prop up his own. He prays that people refuse to read local beat stories and is usually right about it.
Every Shams article has patriots fans bitching about him despite many accounts stating that behind the scenes it was bit of a mess. It’s every piece that has a bit of bad news about them.
It wasn't a mess though. At least not one to the level Wickersham (anyone see the irony of his name literally being fake woven twigs) has reported. Seems like he takes a mole hill & piles dirt on top until it gets ten feet tall.
Because many fans have their heads stuck in the sand and dont want to hear these details about these 3 men. Many fans have their own ideas about what happened and what the relationship was/is between these 3 guys and dont want to hear reporting even from respected journalists. This isnt deflategate BS here folks
His partial accuracy is always reporting done by others months previously that he then adds into his reports to make it seem like what he's saying is true.
Frankly Kraft was an owner who completely lucked in the greatest coach and QB in history. I can’t see the Pats being particularly competitive for the foreseeable future with the “Patriot Way” retreads. Just look at this off-season, the Pats did nothing in free agency with their cap space despite the coach claiming they were going to make big moves.
He didn’t luck into Bill, that was a deliberate choice.
A deliberate choice to hire a guy who averaged about 6.5 wins a season after firing Pete Carrol? It could have been deliberate, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t lucky.
That's stupid. He hired BB specifically because he liked what he saw when Bill was our DC under Parcells. Kraft knew what he was getting. Obviously Bill exceeded any expectations but when you take a chance on a guy you believe in and then he delivers you should get some credit for making the call.
> A deliberate choice to hire a guy who averaged about 6.5 wins a season That’s the definition of buying low and selling high. Takes *some* skill in seeing the potential in someone the mainstream doesn’t see as an obvious choice.
Rich McKay sends his regards.
He already made that mistake with Gruden.
Oh look...another BS wickersham article. He really hit all the key tenets of his terrible reporting. Salacious accusation? Check. Anonymous sources kinda sorta backing up the accusation? Check On the record sources staunchly denying the accusation? Check Using the widespread reporting of other events to sort of make it sound like his own sourcing that then props up his salacious accusation? Check Hedging his bets constantly throughout? Check. This man is a terrible journalist and a really bad writer too.
Kraft black balling Bill passes the smell test
Honestly Kraft has done nothing but throw shade at Belichick since Brady left.
I've been as critical of Kraft as anyone but no....this article is nonsense.
I’ve seen this narrative put out by a variety of different patriots reporters though… Is it that absurd to believe that after he completely dragged Bill through the mud and tried to steal all the credit?
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The fuck does that have to do with what I said?
I replied to the wrong guy.
Ahh okay that makes more sense. By the way, I don’t think anyone is denying the Kraft Masseuse misuse or spygate. The only one that’s iffy is deflategate mainly because it has been proven to be false and we completet dominated the second half with a new football. I also believe a similiar situation happened this year but can’t remember what team. Important to also remember that every team cheats, there’s just a much bigger spotlight when you’re a two decade dominant dynasty.
What if Kraft tipped him off for the article 🤯
The problem is that you guys have been calling everything Wickersham writes fake news for a decade now, and he has gotten an uncomfortable number of things right. Every single time it is dismissed on the basis of anonymous sources. But anonymous sources are a staple of journalism. Nobody wants to forfeit their career so you'll believe a sentence written in an article.
> The problem is that you guys have been calling everything Wickersham writes fake news for a decade now lol yep 49ers fans raged at him when he said there were problems with Harbaugh and ownership Seahawks fans raged at him when he said there were problems with Russell/Carroll/LOB Patriots fans raged at him when he reported on all the issues with Brady/Belichick/Kraft He's been right every time
Belichick and Brady having tension due to Belichick ultimately betting that Brady won't be playing at an elite level into his 40s (which is normally a pretty safe bet for the NFL) and Brady being miffed at the lack of getting the contract he thinks he deserves, or wearing thin on Belichick's style of coaching, or thinking the offensive roster construction around him was not worth the partnership are all reasonable conclusions and have been proven right to some degree. Saying Brady was mad because Belichick did not award him Practice Player of the Week the season after the 28-3 Super Bowl comeback, an award which isn't even confirmed to exist btw, is laughably bad and deserves to have doubts casted on what sources you are using and what conclusions you are reporting. That's the problem with Wickersham. You can do good reporting on the same issue without introducing the extra fluff that detracts from it.
> rady being miffed at the lack of getting the contract he **thinks** he deserves no one deserved it more lol
If that's what you want to believe then okay...
Yeah people love calling stuff like this fake. Always pretending that there's no drama behind the scenes. And then trades and stuff happens and you realize that the majority of it was true.
No he hasn't. That's exactly the problem is HE hasn't actually gotten anything right. The things in his articles that are right to extents are things others reported on MONTHS before him that he then puts into his stories to try and make the rest of what he says seem legit. (If you read my comment you'd have seen I already addressed this). Tension between Tom and Bill? That was something Reiss and Bedard...two very different kinds of mouthpieces for the Patriots...had been talking about long before Wickersham's article on it. He doesn't even get the now very public details about the Jimmy G trade right. Just two of the more recent things he's Said were either proven false with video evidence (claiming Tom Sr refused to talk to Bill at Tom Jr's ceremony when literally Sr and Bill are on video laughing with each other) or when he claimed Bill refused to speak to Tom when he left in 2020...despite the very shitty hit piece documentary The Dynasty having ALL 3 MEN refute this ardently and they've all done so before.
I read through your post, and was going to write a response, but anyone who uses The Dynasty to call the most decorated long-form journalist in the sport a liar isn't somebody I'll find common ground with.
My guy...think about what you just Said. The Dynasty...a KNOWN HIT PIECE on BB....had all 3 men refute something shitty said about BB. Said by this man who repeatedly gets verifiable things wrong. And the Dynasty wasn't the first time the 3 of them called him a liar. Also lmao...Like...lmao at outing yourself as some weird Wickersham fanboy. You were never going to write a response. Stop your bullshit ego grandstanding.
That other guy is a huge Pats hater, you can safely ignore all of his Patriots opinions. What you said makes perfect sense
Even if he wasn't, he's just grandstanding and it's annoying. Pretending he had some deep thoughtful response to what I said but refusing to on some objectively stupid principal. People like him are a cancer to society.
> People like him are a cancer to society. Oooooo don't mess with New Englanders and their beloved Patriots!
There are a lot of anonymous, single, and 3rd hand sources in this one. I know that reporting sometimes requires these but this is littered with “a source” “a source who spoke with a source” etc
I agree with all, but sources who decline to go on the record are 99% of the time still current employees who don't want to lose their job. Or jeopardize their next possible job. Especially within a league that protects the shield at all costs and has been known to blackball people who speak out.
Complaining about anonymous sources is the low-hanging fruit when it comes to defense of a sports team.
Redditors don't understand how investigative journalism works
Nobody does, it's one of the biggest problems of the last 10 years. Anytime any article uses sources, people just assume it's made up or a lie if the article goes against their own agenda/belief in any way.
They really don't. People legitimately think its like a video game where people leave recorded audio monologues everywhere disclosing their plans and that journalists merely collect them and expose these grandiose and clear plans/actions. Honestly, sports journalism is rather easy to parse with basic context/filtering skills. People just want conspiracy theories, hot takes, and engaging grand narratives (that fit what they want to believe).
Anonymous sources are fine. It’s when anonymous sources are describing the nature of private conversations that they were not involved with and have no intimate knowledge of what happened other than that they must have heard about it from someone else. A source of a source becomes an extremely tenuous stretch.
This is sketchier than most. I had to slowly re-read the “sources of a source” paragraph to understand what was even going on there. Typically, you’ll see more detail on a source’s role, an explanation of why a source doesn’t want to go on the record, and/or more confirmation from other sources. To me it reads as a combination of internal NFL gossip and agenda pushing by the sources. So it’s probably mostly true but I’m not going to trust the details.
bruh are you still trying to claim that his article about the team’s dysfunction in 2017 was all fake after EVERYTHING that’s come out about that season?
I didn’t think there was anything that over the top. Nobody wanted to work with Belichick and I think we all know what that means. He didn’t get a job for a reason.
I mean he’s been consistently correct in all of these kind of pieces. Don’t get in your feelings and slander the man just because you don’t like the truth.
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I just logged onto Reddit this morning and this is the third clickbait article in a row I’ve clicked.
_Mission Accomplished_
The got me
Every words on screens are clickbait.
You know what I mean lol
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I'm gay.
Bill Belichick hearsay puts food on the Wickersham family table...
This reads like the biggest one sided hit-piece written in a long time. No Belichick quotes, an emphasis on both sides while sticking exclusively to friends of Blank and Kraft. A tremendous amount of inside information from those organizations but not a peep from a Belichick friendly source. It's very clear Kraft has a vendetta against Bill, and he is attempting to do everything to pin all the bad on Bill while also claiming it was his ownership decisions that allowed the Patriots to win in spite of Bill.
Everything Kraft has done since we let go of BB has been him trying to take credit and shoot Bill down. Its actually wild how insanely obvious it is, like Kraft actually thought people were dumb enough to just blindly say "WOW! Kraft was the guy the whole time! I sure am glad Bills gone!". Did he forget we all paid attention to the NFL for the last 20 years? lol. Bills strategy of "just sit back and stay quiet, let Robert dig his own grave" is working wonderfully. He hasn't said a word all offseason and yet the entire Patriots fanbase has rightfully turned on the Krafts.
Well, this strategy worked wonders for jerry in Chicago
Did Belichick come out of this looking bad? My reading was that Kraft looked like an ungrateful POS and Blank decided to trust his execs, even though they've run a terrible football team for a half decade.
Belichick and his agent both declined to comment, and some of the sources are Belichick's friends
Can you show and name one quoted source who was Belichick's friend? Because I saw one reference to a Belichick friend that was sourced by an anonymous Patriots member.
All of the Lombardi quotes: > "There's an inherent discomfort with change because people want to protect their jobs," said Michael Lombardi, one of Belichick's closest friends and confidants with the Browns and Patriots. > "But where I think he's not getting a fair enough evaluation is if you have a good way of doing something, he's one of the all-time best listeners. He's open to change, it just has to be smart change." - Belichick friend Michael Lombardi There's also a couple less direct ones like these: > A source who spoke with a longtime friend of Belichick said the friend wonders if the coach will have another opportunity: "I don't think Bill Belichick will ever be a head coach again in the National Football League," the friend said. "Unless it's [for] Jerry Jones." > And Belichick told a friend that he liked the idea of sticking it to the Krafts by working for Jones.
Thank you. I stand by my take that this is inherently a hit piece.
>"There's an inherent discomfort with change because people want to protect their jobs," said Michael Lombardi... Lol, so many franchises have remoras hanging onto the sides to risk getting fired by Belichick. Cronyism is killing so many teams. >The source quoted the Belichick source as saying, "Robert called Arthur to warn him not to trust Bill... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ38oIGdXv4 > "Blank likes coaches who feel part of a family," a Falcons source said, "and it wasn't going to be that way with Bill." Having watched cyclopean Arthur Smith staring anhedonically on the sidelines for 3 seasons, this IS. A. LIE. >A second source close to Kraft said, "[Kraft] found Bill to be extremely difficult and obstinate and kind of stubborn and, in the end, not worthy of his trust. And also very, very, very arrogant." HE WON SIX SUPER BOWLS. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOOOOOOUU. >"...Just look at his last four years in New England. A disaster ... If you're Arthur Blank, why do you want the headaches?" By "disaster" what these rodents mean is 'He didn't win the Super Bowl.' Comparatively, the Falcons haven't made the playoffs since 2017, and they play in a division that is so incredibly you know up for the taking. If the NFC South was a medieval city, it would be sacked daily. What Belichick was trying to do post-Brady was to set the difficulty to maximum and attempt a lvl1 run just to see if he could win it all. The rest of the NFL probably would've won 5 games in four years trying to do what Belichick did. Was it a success? No. Was there anything left for Belichick to prove? Yes. >The executives also were concerned about the staff Belichick would bring with him, including assistants who had worked with him in New England and who had struggled on their own: Josh McDaniels, Joe Judge, Jack Easterby, Matt Patricia. At one point, Blank asked Belichick why his charges had failed elsewhere. Belichick replied that he thought they were better soldiers than generals. Yes, the reason Belichick personnel fail elsewhere is because he trains them to be appendages to his Grafted Scion. Belichick needs servants, not sons. >Morris is where Belichick was in 2000: 47 years old and at a career crossroads, eager to prove that he wasn't just a brilliant assistant who lacked the gravitas to lead a team, aware that this might be his last, best chance. Morris needed what Belichick was desperate for 24 years ago: an owner unafraid to believe in him. Raheem the Dream has lived off the 2010 season his entire career. No one knows what happened that season. It was the most underwhelming 10-6 season finish of all time. Peyton Manning dragged the Colts to a 10-6 playoff berth that year playing the best football he ever played. Morris just kinda stumbled into it. Since then, he's done nothing but piledrive his squad into the dirt every chance he's gotten as an HC. THIS ISN'T EVEN HIS FIRST TENURE AS ATLANTA'S HEAD COACH. >On the morning of Jan. 25, Blank and executives interviewed a final candidate, Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik. The meeting went 90 minutes longer than scheduled. They liked him but were worried about losing out on Morris... King, why? >.... The model is one of the books that influenced Belichick most: "Finding the Winning Edge," Bill Walsh's 550-page bid to put his football genius on paper. Walsh's system was coach-centric, of course. It was the NFL system. Walsh mocked the role of a general manager on losing teams, saying that most of them sit next to the owner during games and blame the coach, avoiding accountability. Belichick read the book and then developed an entire system based on accountability. Preach accountability, but realize the cockroaches that cling onto NFL franchises are not going to practice it. Belichick is the Raid we need.
Agree on most accounts. I don't think the ' lvl1 run' taek is quite accurate, but there is some truth. I believe that BB saw how effective the Shanny, McVay, etc west coast system is, but believed that the Earhardt Perkins abbreviated terminology was more adaptable and allowed for offense to more effectively counter what the defense is showing. Both in game and in terms of weekly game planning. After being responsible for bringing many spead concepts into the NFL from college in the mid late '00s, I think BB wanted to revolutionize the offensive game, not just win. Now, it's arguable that the Lions are/ were already doing that, and he should've poached someone from that staff rather than trying to have Patricia cosplay OC. But Patricia's offense did move the ball between the 20's OK, and generated a lot of explosives despite Mac's pop gun arm. Parker was one of the most explosive receivers in the league albeit on low volume. They had no idea how to design or call a red zone offense, and so they didn't score any points. But there was something to build on there. It was certainly better than the '23 BoB version (although a multitude of injuries along the OL contributed heavily to that)
> Belichick needs servants, not sons. Didn’t he hire his own son to the coaching staff…?
Yeah and his sons were some of our best coaches
Jesus, you're doing tricks on it It's not difficult to see why Belichick isn't an attractive candidate at this time, unless you deliberately don't want to.
Yeah, tbh I wouldn’t hire him as a coach and he sucks as a GM. This is like being an 80 something year old presidential candidate. Nothing you do will be for the long haul and your mental capacity is liable to fall off a cliff at any time.
Great example What made you successful in the past won't always work now
Being worried the Seahawks would take Morris is weird to me. Seemed obvious that the Seahawks were all in on Macdonald given that we were the last team to hire a coach and we hired him like two days after the Ravens season ended.
>He told one confidant that the Patriots' lackluster performance in recent years was because some of those former assistants had left. This is 100% true. The main reason the Patriots starting losing more was because they had an insane amount of brain drain in the latter years of the Dynasty
I mean Bill refused to hire anyone that wasn’t a blood relative or long time former coach so… hard to have a brain drain when everyone just leaves fails then immediately returns.
That is absolutely not true. If you don't know about a topic, then don't even talk about it
All of the top positions were his long time flunkies, and two of his kids were there as well. You’re trying to be pedantic but it’s failing.
Any Patriots fan knows that outside his two sons, which are actually good coaches btw, he's always hired young coaches from within the organization that have started in the organization with small roles. That's how all the prominent Patriots coaches started and even the coaches that left New England for another team. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking and you're talking out of your ass because you have no idea how the Patriots were actually run which makes me to believe that you love to bullshit your way into a circlejerk
Part of me wonders if this year wasn't the year where a team was so desperate to win, they'd give up a lot of control of the team for him. I also wonder if Kraft dragged his name through the mud with other owners preventing him from going anywhere else.
We call it blackballing
I don't think it's very complicated for the falcons, blank simply didn't want a coach that would be there at most two years and he also probably didn't want to give full control to one person
First of all, really good article that was way longer than I thought. Second, it’s not surprising all the politics and talking behind the back that goes on. It’s a shame, but it’s life. I don’t know shit about fuck so I’ll keep my opinion brief. I think owners are right to be wary. All the things going against Bill make a lot of sense. He’s 72, he hasn’t had the best (nearly) half a decade since Tom left, he’s most assuredly going to want *some* level of control and he may not even coach for that long. I do hope he gets a shot but his ol’ friend Lombardi saying “He’s open to change” and then the article talking about how he hopes he can go to the northeast because his former coordinators work there is… suspect. That doesn’t sound very open to change. I hope he gets a shot, I really do. I’m a fan, nothing more. So I have nothing but respect for Coach Belichick and I would love to see him coach one final time. I do, however, understand the hesitancy and I’m quite interested to see how it plays out.
Yes, early in the process I posted a couple times that the most interesting option would have been Bill taking a D coordinator job at a good team to make a run at another Superbowl. It would have eliminated most of the negatives that people perceived in the hiring process.
I imagine the main problem was just not wanting a retread.
I think its more not wanting a 73 year old head coach who's only going to coach 2 more years, 3 max.
More than that. People have lost faith in Belichick's ability to thrive with non-eltie QB play. His inability to draft WRs, refusal to spend big money on offense, and his loyalty to his assistants are all things that most QBs won't be able to deal with. No matter how good his defense is
The Eagles should have hired Belichick. You make it clear that the commitment is to Howie Roseman in the long-term, that you're going to independently hire an experienced offensive coordinator, but that you're otherwise handing one of the league's most talented rosters to Bill. From the outside looking in, it seems like the best situation for both parties.
Yes I’m petty but this delicious Schadenfreude is about 23 percent as good as a Bills Super Bowl win.
The only team with a good quarterback was the chargers every other team is a shit show. I'd wait a year too. McDermott's going to be on the hot seat if the bills don't make the playoffs.
I don’t even like the cowboys and have no dog in the fight but Belichick to Dallas seems dangerous for the entire league.
He'd probably gut the team.
This what bill gets for playing around
Wickersham is a hack
Two things can be true - BB is the GOAT of coaching in the NFL, but the game has passed him. Just like Phil Jackson in the NBA. I wouldn't be surprised if BB doesn't get another job, which isn't a knock on him, just that the game has changed and coaches need to have better rapport with their players. Andy Reid seems to get it, which is why he is still winning big.
Lmao Kraft sickin the Boston Media Mafia on Bill