I always assumed final say meant BB had... final say. Or you know, they could fire him. (Not even being a smart ass, that was my assumption for the arrangement.)
End of an Era: Bill Belichick and Patriots to part ways
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
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If I had to wager how this played out, informed by many years of observing the sons and daughters of captains of industry, once Jonathan Kraft began to insert himself more and more, things began to rapidly deteriorate. To be sure - not the only driver - but one that increased post Brady and undermined actual football expertise.
I suspect if we chart out the 24 years we can see the difference between when Robert left Bill mostly alone (sure, consultations, but informative more than intervening) and as Robert tried to get Jonathan ready to take over.
Sons and daughters of industry leaders are very seldom the same as their fathers and mothers. There's often a misplaced assumption they can do what Dad or Mom did, and do it just as well. It's almost never the case. I think we see that in the NFL all the time.
Just my opinion though.
I suspect if we chart out the 24 years we can see the difference between when Robert left Bill mostly alone (sure, consultations, but informative more than intervening) and as Robert tried to get Jonathan ready to take over.
Sons and daughters of industry leaders are very seldom the same as their fathers and mothers. There's often a misplaced assumption they can do what Dad or Mom did, and do it just as well. It's almost never the case. I think we see that in the NFL all the time.
Just my opinion though.
We have known for years that big decisions go through the owner. Like telling BB to trade Jimmy G.
I think the struggles over the past four years are because they lost Tom Brady, not that Jonathan Kraft suddenly got more involved.
Of course on Brady, but disagree on some of the timing. I think Jonathan was more involved toward the end of Brady's time here and it did not help, only accelerating the last four years.
Well, he also denied this one about trading Mac. So we either believe that owners are involved because, well, they are. Or we believe Kraft wasn't involved and this whole meddling thing is moot.
Questioning personnel decisions during the worst season in 25 years isn’t meddling. It would be insane to think Bill having final say literally meant the Krafts never ever gave an opinion or had a say on anything. Meddling is directing your GM to send off tons of picks for an aging star.
When did all this handwringing over Jonathan start? Are we really trying to say he’s the reason the team went downhill, and not because the greatest player of all time left? This is a 4-13 team that’s going to have a new coach, a new GM, and God willing a new QB. There are plenty of issues to discuss without postulating based off an article written by that absolute gargoyle Wickersham.
When did all this handwringing over Jonathan start? Are we really trying to say he’s the reason the team went downhill, and not because the greatest player of all time left? This is a 4-13 team that’s going to have a new coach, a new GM, and God willing a new QB. There are plenty of issues to discuss without postulating based off an article written by that absolute gargoyle Wickersham.
The only people who have final say in any business, are the people that own it. Period. Bill had a large degree of power , likely more than any other coach/GM in the league. In terms of day in day out operations, it seems the Krafts basically left him alone. In terms of big personnel/financial decisions, I’m guessing it usually went: “we trust your expertise Bill, do what you think is best for the football team”. But they always had the authority to say no. They just chose, wisely, not to very often for the majority of his tenure. As noted above, that dynamic may very well have changed in the last couple of years with Jonathon’s increasing involvement.
There was a scene in A Football Life where Bill is meeting with Robert Kraft and a couple of others where they are discussing personnel decisions. So, no, I would not expect Bill to have simply traded Mac without any consultation with either Robert or Jonathan. Consultation does not mean Bill had to go to seek their permission, and even Wickersham's report says the Krafts "disagreed" rather than something like "refused".
If Bill wanted to trade Mac, I highly doubt they were going to receive compensation for him that was anywhere close to where he'd been drafted just a couple years prior, so would that not be another indictment of Bill's drafting ability? It's not like Mac's 2022 season left a list of teams lining up for a bidding war for his services.
If Bill was also so out on Mac by that point, why did he do absolutely nothing to at least bring in real competition in training camp at the QB position?
If Bill was also so out on Mac by that point, why did he do absolutely nothing to at least bring in real competition in training camp at the QB position?
Actually, I can, using the "I never want to hear that name again" exemption.
While I've got the exemption out and working, I'd like to delete Tatum, too - just hearing his name leaves me feeling a little sick.
Well the rumor that has bounced around is that Kraft told Bill to draft Mac. Now we are talking about rumors so who knows if any of them are true.
I literally can’t believe that we got rid of the best coach in history that almost every other team in the league would kill to have. But hey that’s just me.
I agree with the Krafts haven't been too much of a problem to this point. The hand-wringing is about whats going to happen next- there's no immediate plan to hire a GM, they "may" promote from within, they hired a coach without even interviewing other candidates. It sure feels like ownership is going to be more involved then they were previously.
Agreed, but if he were 60 it would really sting. Because he's 72, it makes it much easier.
Jeff Howe with a piece that puts Bill’s dismissal squarely at his feet with respect to his struggles with the offense – and says he botched developing Mac:
Bill’s repeated inability to plan for personnel and coaching departures—Gronk, Brady, McDaniels, Ernie, Scar—undermined his ability to coach up and assemble an adequate offense. And without that you can’t win games in football. Thats why he’s no longer coaching the Patriots.
I know there are a lot of posters who will argue until they take their last breath that Mac Jones is responsible for Belichick’s demise. I understand that POV. But Howe is a good reporter and he doesn’t let Mac off the hook. More importantly tho, it is not only a ludicrous premise that the career of the GOAT coach who literally had murderers on his teams could be ruined by a single player – it also goes against all the evidence.
Bill’s repeated inability to plan for personnel and coaching departures—Gronk, Brady, McDaniels, Ernie, Scar—undermined his ability to coach up and assemble an adequate offense. And without that you can’t win games in football. Thats why he’s no longer coaching the Patriots.
This this this this this.
We all love Belichick and I'm guessing the vast majority of us consider him the GOAT. I'm one of them.
I'm so grateful to the guy, but in reading that Howe piece I kept thinking, "The guys on SOSH are going to kill him for this" and at the same time thinking, "I find it really hard to argue with ANY of what he's written." After so many years of exceptional coaching, prep, development, drafting, team-building, Belichick did a seriously poor job of preparing for eventualities (on the sidelines and between the lines) for, basically, a decade. (Not all of it, of course, there have been examples of the old BB magic.) And this isn't a matter of reading the piece and saying, "Oh wow, that happened? That's REALLY bad." It's reading it and saying, "Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. That's what many of us have been watching - and posting about - for a while now.
edit typos and leaving shit out and stuff
Some of that just sounds like sour grapes to me. Oh poor Mac Jones sometimes had a play called in with a different voice. Oh dear.
Also, it’s just not possible for anyone to replace coaches he’d spent 20, 30, 40, 50+ years with—and all the guys under them—to say nothing of two of the all time greatest players, neither of whom were drafted as Peyton Manning/can’t miss types. I don’t hold it against Bill that he tried some out-of-the-box thinking to make it work. But it didn’t.
Let’s see how you do with Matt Patricia and Joe Judge arguing in your helmet while the play clock is winding down.
Ok, if that's what it was, then I agree that isn't acceptable. But it doesn't seem like what the quote I read suggested. I thought the quote just said sometimes different people called in a play. I didn't realize they meant at the same time!
Yep, knowing that this was coming within a year or two anyway (almost certainly) makes it easier to take, but still...man, *voluntarily* giving him up is tough.
How many more years would you have given him? What if he traded out of the #3 pick, picked a bunch of guys on nobody’s draft board, and then went 4-13 again next year? Would you still run it back with Bill?
I continue to be dumbfounded by anyone who feels like this was definitively the right or wrong decision. I could have been on board with another year of Bill but would have been petrified on draft day because this team needs a massive infusion of talent on offense and he’s not been great at that over recent years. I also can see why they thought it was time. I think it was an incredibly tough call.
He’s the best coach of all time but he’s 72 and there are some red flags. We aren’t dumping prime BB with another decade+ left in the tank.
I’m slightly kidding – but I trust Howe’s reporting and sourcing enough that if he is reporting stories that suggest the process was so dysfunctional that it harmed the players’ development than it likely was. He’s not a guy who shares salacious stuff for the sake of a narrative (which I suspect Wickersham does).
Maybe Bill shares some of the blame for the Mac fiasco. But Mac had an experienced OC and QB coach this season and still failed miserably. That’s on Mac.
But also a crappy, bargain-basement O-line and sub-standard receivers, including a guy (JuJu) who replaced the one receiver Mac seemed to click with. We all agree Mac stunk, but it's fair to say BB did him few favors with the rest of the offense.
I still feel BB remains the gold standard in terms of game planning for a particular matchup, particularly on the defensive side. At the same time, I increasingly feel that his GM'ing and running the whole operation has slipped, that his ability to build a really good offense without an other-worldly QB is far from certain, and that he has made some pretty blame-worthy decisions (Matty P and Joe J, as well as N'Keal and Tyquan). Personally I would have liked him to stay on for another couple of years, but I certainly can agree that there were good reasons to move on.
Are we forgetting how piss poor Mac’s throwing mechanics have been? I mean, I’m no quarterback guru, but even I know that throwing off your back foot is bad, and that you need to step into throws, etc. I certainly wouldn’t need a coach to tell me that. I have Coached kids who have been taught from an early age the very specific steps that a QB takes when receiving the snap from the center. I find it real hard to believe that no one, throughout his career has taught him how to be a QB, because he certainly does not have the raw talent. fuck that noise, it’s all Mac’s fault.
Sure, but you know it's not just the fact that it's different voices right? I've literally never heard of another team doing that. There's gotta be a reason right?
Yeah, I would like to know the frequency and the context. I would not be shocked at all if late in a game that is already decided Belichick put somebody on the spot to call plays. I've read about him doing stuff like that. Testing the next man up, and all that. I doubt the Pats regularly changed up who was calling in plays, which is why it sounded like sour grapes to me.
Look, neither of us know, but you really think BB, who would sometimes leave starters in all game, was changing up the play-caller in games that were already decided?
At least one. I’d fire him when I saw real signs of decline. He’s had some terrible draft picks, it’s true, but I feel like people don’t recognize (or they give it lip service but then immediately forget) that the draft is an exercise in small sample sizes. He’s bad at drafting WRs? Ok. How many has he drafted, over what time frame, and how did the game change over that time frame such that older data points may be irrelevant as a predictor of future success?
Look, I can’t defend the outcomes of drafting Harry, and so on. The outcomes have been horrible on the offensive side recently. I just don’t think I can say how much of that is bad luck vs bad process.
So yeah, I’d have given him at least another year. Doesn’t mean it was an easy call.
Yes, completely plausible to me. Not raising the white flag, but testing the next man up. I've read about him doing stuff like that.
But I just found reports from January 2023 that say it was actually Belichick that stepped in and started calling offensive plays occasionally during the 2022 season. And blaming Belichick for plays getting in late. This has to be it.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/report-bill-belichick-moonlighting-offensive-play-caller-in-2022/
Fair enough. I could have been on board with one more year. I am mostly pushing back on the cut and dried “it was a mistake” or “slam dunk he had to go” posts. I just can’t get there either way.
In terms of the draft I think he’s mostly been good to better than average, you don’t reload over and over again without being pretty good at it. I just don’t particularly trust him at this stage with the offense, the decision making has been poor there for a number of years. I think he’s always been a stubborn bastard and that has served him very well over the years, but I can also see how that stubbornness might be working against him now. Who knows?
I am sad to see him go, but I have come around to thinking it was probably time, or if it wasn’t it would have been in 1-2 more years in any case.
BB was operating like he still had Tom Brady on offense when that hasn’t been the case. The league is an offensive league now. If he had put some real resources towards the offense instead of jags, has beens, etc then maybe he isn’t on the unemployment line right now.
Was that story co-written by Mac Jones?
Has anyone watched Mac Jones and thought, yeah this guy could be great. Somehow Zappe was able to compete, but the deck was stacked against Mac?
What did BB put around Mac that was any good? He had a QB on a rookie contract yet proceeded to give him garbage talent on the offensive side of the ball.
None of the quotes posted were about talent. It was about voices in his headset, vague guidance, and being "cold".
They say he lost confidence because of the offensive line, but after week what 4, the line was league-average at worst. If a QB can't fight through the above issues, he is not good enough to be one of the 32 starting QBs, or do people now think Mac could be good?
@Petagine in a Bottle, Zappe is worse, and yet he never lost confidence because of the O-line or because of vague coaching or because someone was "sold" to them.
All the quotes above show is a QB who can't handle any type of adversity.
The sentiment is already in the building or it isn't. But oh boy that would be a really bad sign for the future if they go down that road.
I am also dreading this but I think the top 3 pick mitigates things. If we had #4 or later it would be insufferable.
If it was 4 or lower I would be trading down with all the holes they have.
And the result of that would likely be lots of talk about how we can draft an OL, WR, etc. and give it another year with Mac. Revisit things in 2025. Which would be depressing.