Patriots

The ideal scenario would be for Belichick to remain the coach, beef up his offensive staff with a well-compensated innovator, and waive his omnipotence on personnel and draft matters.

By Chad Finn, The Boston Globe

December 12, 2023 | 10:22 AM

I’ve been thinking often about Bill Belichick’s future lately, because there isn’t much else to think about regarding the resilient but playoff-eliminated Patriots beyond where their first-round selection in the 2024 NFL Draft may land and whether their legendary coach will still be with the franchise when they make (or trade) that pick.

I’ve thought about his future, often, and I’m certain about what I want to happen when this disappointing season is complete. It doesn’t involve him providing unparalleled insight and, yes, genuine comic relief, on “College GameDay” or an NFL studio program. It doesn’t involve Belichick, to use his parlance, being on to Los Angeles or Washington.

It involves the status quo, at least when it comes to his role on Sunday afternoons.

I want him to remain Patriots coach, for a 25th season and beyond. Robert Kraft should, too.

This is not meant to ignore the vast problems on this roster — from the shattering of Mac Jones’s promise to dubious hires on the coaching staff to habitually prioritizing aiding the defense over the offense to spending draft capital on specialists to the failure to draft competent wide receivers to … well, you’ve watched this season, and the last, and the ugly end to the once hopeful season before that. You know the problems, recurring and new, all of which Belichick is complicit in some way.

The ideal scenario would be for Belichick to remain the coach, beef up his offensive staff with a well-compensated innovator, and waive his omnipotence on personnel and draft matters. There has to be someone in the front office with team-building experience who has the power to overrule Belichick when he wants to spend a first-round pick on a guard with a third-round grade (Cole Strange, whom Sean McVay is probably still snickering about), or when he passes up more athletic receivers to take a receiver whose skill-set suggests he might be better off at guard. (Had N’Keal Harry in mind there.)

Is that too much to ask? Oh yes, almost definitely.

But if Belichick isn’t willing to cede personnel authority and accept some help with the grocery shopping, or insists his offensive coaching staff is just fine, you know what the Krafts should do?

Retain him anyway.

Belichick remains one of the — what, top half-dozen? — game-day coaches in the NFL. Legitimate solutions aren’t coming for the Patriots offense over the final four games, even if limited Bailey Zappe plays competently at quarterback. But the defense, which has allowed 44 total points over the last four games, is tough and resolute, and players on both sides of the line of scrimmage have been admirably stubborn about trying to win. The season might be a lost cause, but Belichick has not lost his players. The respect remains, and that says a lot.

It annoys me that some fans, particularly those who lived through the entire two-decade dynasty, are so quick to minimalize Belichick’s role. I have a buddy who texts me roughly every other day “It was all Brady,” as if he’s the one that drafted and developed Belichick and not vice versa. I know Belichick has a losing career record without Brady; proper context to that, particularly during the Cleveland years, isn’t hard to find, and I trust you will seek it.

It blows my mind that during the Patriots’ unprecedented and never-to-be-duplicated run of six championships, nine Super Bowl appearances, and 17 division titles, so many are so quick to dismiss Belichick’s recurring and prolonged brilliance, from habitually tormenting Peyton Manning, to the spectacular defensive game-plans in the bookend Super Bowl wins over the Rams, to outwitting Pete Carroll and having the Patriots prepared for a goal-line pass in Super Bowl XLIX, to thwarting the best player on the opposing offense over and over and over again.

I’ll agree that Brady was slightly more valuable, since he was the one on the field seizing the moment time after time. But the dismissal of Belichick’s role because the post-Brady years have not gone well is both foolish and unfair. Not to mention that splitting the credit between the quarterback and the coach marginalizes the contributions of Rob Gronkowski, Richard Seymour, Mike Vrabel, Julian Edelman, Devin McCourty, Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Rodney Harrison, Matt Light, Deion Branch, Ty Warren, Vince Wilfork, Logan Mankins, Jerod Mayo, Dont’a Hightower, James White, Joe Thuney, David Givens, Roman Phifer, Rob Ninkovich, Shane Vereen, David Andrews, Stephon Gilmore, Darrelle Revis, Corey Dillon, and many, many others, all of whom Belichick brought here.

I know, it never feels good when something great comes to an ignominious end. But this isn’t that. The idea of moving on from Belichick, even with all that has gone wrong, feels like a mistake in the making.

The more I think about it — the more I think about another coach on the Patriots sideline next season — the more it feels like the wrong thing.

Bill Belichick has followed 20 extraordinary years with three mostly lousy ones.

Can he get his mojo back in a dire situation that is in large part of his making?

Let’s leave it at this: I hope he gets the chance. Because no one in NFL history has been better at making adjustments when all looked lost.