"Bill had told me he couldn't play anymore," Kraft said privately afterward, "and then he goes out and wins the f---ing Super Bowl."
Belichick had sent clear signals internally for weeks that he thought he was coaching his final games for the Patriots. He also made it clear that he was ready to move on, telling confidants that Robert Kraft and his son, team president Jonathan Kraft, had eroded the culture he had built over two decades.
Belichick internally discussed trading Brady and talked openly to associates about wanting to win a Super Bowl without him.
A tricky dynamic ensued, with Kraft acting as a referee between the two alphas. Brady wanted to ease up his offseason workouts, which didn't bother Belichick and maybe even pleased him. Brady watched his old reps going to Garoppolo and jumped back in. Brady complained to Kraft about the offseason practice schedules, which led Kraft to start asking around the building. Word got back to Belichick, who wondered why Kraft was asking these questions.
"I'm going to do what I need to get my quarterback the right people," Kraft told a confidant.
Over the years, those in Kraft's orbit have heard the owner "put down Belichick at every opportunity," a source close to Kraft said. This game was no different. Kraft's open mocking of Belichick -- a common line was "the great, intelligent man" -- was the worst-kept secret in New England. Although he denied saying it through a team spokesperson, Kraft used that line too many times to too many people for it to remain a secret.
The relationship between Jonathan Kraft and Belichick, never strong, worsened. Jonathan is protective over his father's legacy and watched for years as Belichick refused to acknowledge him in the hallways and dismissed him as obsessed with optics. In late 2022, according to a first-hand account, which Jonathan denied this week through a team spokesperson, Jonathan was talking to friends when one of them brought up New England's losing season.
"That guy's got to go," he said about Belichick. "He's done."
Mayo sometimes brought a baseball bat to meetings, swinging it around while the rest of the coaches had their heads down, projecting an attitude that he was separate from the rest, a favored son.
Word leaked around the office that if Belichick were gone in 2024, football operations would be split between Glaser and Jonathan Kraft. Patriots coaches and executives thought that "the Krafts' meddling has got everyone spun around," a source on the personnel side said.
Local reporters asked Belichick and O'Brien whether Jones would be benched; instead, Belichick left him in games, even when it was clear the quarterback was losing confidence.
"A f--- you to Kraft," a confidant of Belichick's said.
As the season neared its halfway point -- and New England lost to Dallas and New Orleans in consecutive weeks by a combined score of 72-3 -- Jonathan Kraft was as involved as ever, hammering Belichick behind the scenes about personnel decisions, as if slowly building a case to remove the coach.
"He's been brutal," Belichick told a friend.
If Kraft came to him after the season, he would make it clear to confidants that his plan was to say that he had done his best with what ownership wanted, with Mayo, O'Brien and hiring outside on the scouting side. He wanted to force Kraft to decide.
"He's going to have to move first," Belichick said.
Before New England's 2002 Super Bowl against the Rams, Belichick refused to play along with the ritual player introductions and insisted on taking the field together, as a team, no stars, no egos, just a group of proud, talented men with a shared goal and a willingness to chase that goal with relentlessness. That became the norm. The central enemy of the Patriot Way was all those pesky human emotions: kindness, loyalty, friendship, nostalgia, ego. Rejecting those urges is what led to the success, and the inability to reject them is what proved the other 31 teams unable to replicate the blueprint.
"The Krafts should be ashamed of themselves," a Patriots assistant coach told a confidant.
But the building felt different. Belichick spent more time alone in his office. Over the decades he'd give assistant coaches projects toward the end of the season, preparing for the draft or free agency. He didn't do that this year.
In one staff meeting, O'Brien got angry with Belichick during a discussion about running plays. He stormed out. The rest of the coaches were quiet, unsure of what to do. Belichick just let it go, knowing it all would be over soon.
A confidant of Kraft's who watched thought it was a virtuoso performance. "Robert's idea, throughout this process, was how can I look the best I can on this thing?" he said. "He got what he wanted. A hug at the end of the press conference. ... Completely amicable. It's an amazing performance because I don't think Bill has given Robert eye contact in a year and a half."
The Patriot Way was always Team, Teammate, Self, until it wasn't.
Belichick made clear in the news conference with Kraft that he isn't done coaching, at least not until he passes Don Shula.
