Find any highly successful organization that doesn’t have tension between the main parties in that organization. Good luck.
I laughed about a month ago when it was reported Zappe was named by Bill as a "Patriot of the Week" after people acted as if that wasn't a thing that existed or Wickersham was confusing it with the Practice Player of the Week award (generally given to guys low on the totem pole/practice squaders).
Seriously, we're talking about 3 people literally at the peak of their careers. There is a lot of ego involved in that. And with that, there will be tension and it's natural. It would be odd if there wasn't tension, the world is not a utopia.
KC is the only option. You have a generational QB and a coach with over two decades of success and a couple of SBs.
Exactly. This is just how these generational things always end. Everyone saw the Last Dance, the Bulls were a mess at the end of that. It's a testament to how long things lasted, and how it fell apart doesn't detract from what came before.
I can understand BB’s thinking, even if it was ultimately faulty. The track record of mid-40’s quarterbacks was essentially a series of emergency QBs scenarios like Blanda’s famous run in 1970 and guys like Vinny T and Steve deBerg coming off the street. The bills for 2014-2018 were coming due and the cuts needed to fit even a modest salary for TB under the cap in ‘20-‘21 would left the team uncompetitive. Couple that with the Bills/Dolphins being on the rise and I can see why rebuilding around a rookie contract makes sense.
Jerry Jones coulda had Jimmy J for 20 years. But he fucked it up. Kraft did not.
The pin thing was weird for Reiss to lead off that story with but I at least understood what Reiss was getting at.
100%.
I thought it was a really well written article.
The pin thing was a rare unforced error by Belichick. He could have put it on and expressed a brief word of support for Kraft's initiative and moved on to the other topics.
They come across as rich owners of an NFL team. Seems like they just tired of Belichick after 24 years of an intense and high pressure environment of running a football team, and vice versa.
In my somewhat useless opinion…based on an article that may or may not be true.
To me, the worst aspect of the article is that it did raise the possibility that Mac blew smoke up Robert's ass and then tried to play up his relationship with the owner as a way to undermine Bill when things got difficult. I still recall how Bill talked glowingly about Mac at the start of the 2022 training camp, and then quickly backed off his comments. It was easy to dismiss as "Bill being Bill" at the time, but clearly the Bill-Mac relationship grew strained real fast.
There a tweet from a wide receiver posted in this thread telling Bill he’d follow him wherever he goes; the defensive player whose name is escaping me but who was heard at the end of one game telling an opponent “sorry we’re ass right now” (paraphrase) stood in front of reporters a few weeks ago saying the players felt terrible for this seasons results because Bill was working so hard trying to get them to okay better. The “his players hate him because he’s a big meanie!” mantra is weak.
There are examples of players that like him. His style isn’t for everyone. Bottom line is that losing breeds all of this and when the team is shit the head coach is going to catch shit, I just imagine losing when playing for a coach his style is worse.
I did find one thing interesting here regarding the Bedard report.
Pretty strong agreement. You would think Wickersham was Chris Mortensen with the type of derision the board treats him with.
So when BB asked them they should have done what? Not given an opinion?
"Whatever you deem to be best for the team, Bill" is probably the response he was looking for. I just find it strange that he'd have to run trading a player through ownership, didn't think the Pats had that kind of structure.
The Krafts love there QBs, always have. We were lucky Brady played along nicely with BB for so many years.
But like, any starting QB? Phil Perry just had a report that, contrary to popular talk radio belief, drafting Mac was Bill's call and there was no order from Kraft that they needed to take one. That being the case, I would think Bill would have final say in a potential trade especially involving a player who hadn't really accomplished anything.
This list needs Ben Dreith. And Jack Tatum.
Didn't sound like "giving an opinion" to me, sounded like actively telling the GM to not make a personell move.
Ughhhhh yeah how is this not sending off major alarms for everyone?? The issue here isn't the bickering between the Krafts and Belichick. As unpleasant as it is, it's kind of expected with the collapse of a 24 year partnership. If Jonathan is going to be heavily involved in football operations as implied, that's going to be a complete disaster. It would be the best run franchise of the last two decades all of a sudden implementing the organizational structure of the NFL's most incompetent teams.
You know that EVERYONE thinks Bill is cancerous huh? Ownership did not stay out of roster decisions. Not a single ownership group does. What the Kraft's did not do is meddle.
