In the End, GM Bill Cost HC Bill His Job

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Bill Belichick's nearly quarter-century tenure in Foxboro was (I can't believe I'm using past tense after all this time) was without equal. And will never be duplicated. Go ahead and try to compare him to any of the other legends of the past and you'll only make that case for me. 

Because what he was able to accomplish was done under a completely different set of rules. Ones that were set up specifically to keep teams from being too good for too long. Don Shula, George Halas, Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, Joe Gibbs … whatever success they achieved and how ever many championship rings they manged to fit on their rough, manly fingers was accomplished in a time where teams held all the cards. Where their players were like indentured servants who were offered two choices each year: Sign the contract they were offered, or don't play. During The Belichick Epoch, he never never enjoyed that luxury. In the 21st century, the top teams are meant to be sandcastles. Great to look at for a while, but washed away with the next tide. He somene managed to build his out of granite.

At a time where every three to for years every player on his roster was able to jump ship and opposing teams were paying a premium for winners, GM Bill was always able to find replacements that HC Bill would coach up, creating a perpetual motion victory machine.

That is, until he no longer did. That ultimately was his undoing. 

Now at this point, let me interupt the flow of thought because I know what far too many of you are thinking. "It was all Tom Brady all along." Which is not only lazy, shallow, illogical, and discredits everything this Dynasty accomplished, it's being ignorant of history. It pretends that all those great defenses (12 times on Belichick's watch the Pats finished Top 7 in points allowed, and as recently as 2021 they gave up the 2nd fewest) and superlative special teams. As well as the steady, consistent offensive lines and solid running games he always managed to put together. Yes, Brady had a positive effect on all of those aspects. But he didn't shut down The Greatest Show on Turf, blow out the tires on the Colts' offense in 2003-04, or keep the 2018 Rams (the 11th highest scoring attack in history to that point) out of the end zone and even the red zone in Super Bowl LIII. That was HC Bill. 

Even with the failure of the post-Brady years, when the Dynasty entered its Fat Elvis stage, the coach kept commanding respect and got his players to give max effort:

From The Boston Herald last week:

“The guys still respond to him,” a tenured Patriots source said of Belichick. “And goddamn, we have so many squad meetings where he shows them what’s going to happen in the game, and it always f–ing happens. Even down to what we can’t do, and then we end up f—ing doing it.”

And from a rare win late this season:

So it was never about Xs & Os. In the end, it was about signing and drafting a bunch of schmoes. The holes in the roster created by bad trades, ill-advised free agent signings, and draft busts that he used to be able to spackle and paint over became massive gaps. Entire pieces of drywall missing to the point the studs were showing To the point that even the recent hits like Kyle Dugger, Michael Onwenu, Matthew Judon, Christian Barmore and Demario Douglas couldn't fill them. 

That's what cost HC Bill his job. Decisions like the most ill-fated personnel move of his legendary career, drafting N'Keal Harry in the 1st round in 2019. Which was then exacerbated by an attempt to make up for it by trading a 2nd rounder for Mohamed Sanu. Then to try and make up for that by throwing a bunch of money at Nelson Agholor the following year in that wild spending spree of 2021. Mr. Kraft said publicly at the time that tossing money around in free agency was never how they did business before. In fact, they used to use the teams that did as examples of how NOT to build a winner. But he went along because that's what Belichick told him was the best approach. 

Turns out it wasn't. 

Sure, they got Judon, Hunter Henry, Kendrick Bourne and Jalen Mills out of it. But the last two have spent long stretches of their Patriots careers getting inexplicably benched. Both Agholor and Jonnu Smith were colossal wastes of money. And the only winning that shopping trip accomplished turned out to be short lived. Nothing more than a sugar rush. And from there, the talent gap between the Pats and their opponents only got wider. And Mr. Kraft saw his franchise going backwards. Bottoming out this year at 4-13 and a league-worst 13.8 points per game. 

We'll know more about the though process when Mr. Kraft addresses the media at noon. But right now it sure feels like this is his reasoning. He found himself a critical juncture in his franchise's history. In a situation where the player personnel system that had served him so well for so long was no longer producing results. And holding not only the 3rd overall pick in April but also the third most cap space this year and the most in 2025. With so much at stake, he couldn't trust that failing system to suddenly start firing on all cylinders. So he made the toughest decision of his professional since the day 30 years ago he bought the worst team in the NFL. 

I still wish these two great visionaries had figured out an arrangement whereby the player procurement was improved, but the coach still got to stay. Which is something Belichick suggested he was open to at the beginning of the week. But that seemed like a pipe dream. Too much to hope for in the lousy reality we find ourselves in. Someone had to pay for the mistakes of Belichick the GM. And Belichick the coach just did.