Former Patriots running back provides harsh but fair reality of Bill Belichick's failed job search prior to 2024 season
It was both a shocking and expected moment when the New England Patriots decided to mutually part ways with Bill Belichick after the 2023 season. Six Super Bowl championships is an incredible accomplishment, but his failures during the past few seasons also couldn't be ignored. So Belichick departed and began looking for a job elsewhere. […]
It was both a shocking and expected moment when the New England Patriots decided to mutually part ways with Bill Belichick after the 2023 season. Six Super Bowl championships is an incredible accomplishment, but his failures during the past few seasons also couldn't be ignored.
So Belichick departed and began looking for a job elsewhere. However, when the process concluded, every team had a head coach.
And Bill Belichick was not one of them.
For one of his former players, this came as no surprise because the coach is "stuck in his ways."
“And I think that just at the stage of his career that he’s in, I think that what he was expecting to be handed to him versus what people were willing to give him — in retrospect, I think that maybe they just didn’t align,” running back Damien Harris said on The Athletic Football Show.
Much of Belichick's failure in the past couple of seasons was due to the serious issues on the offense. The Patriots drafted Mac Jones in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft, and the quarterback went on to have a stellar rookie season.
But then former offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels left and Belichick brought in Matt Patricia and Joe Judge to take over. And we all know how that went. Belichick wasn't willing to budge on his ways and many players weren't able to speak their mind about what was going wrong.
Following the parting of ways, Belichick became a favorite for the Atlanta Falcons head coaching job. Falcons owner Arthur Blank even took Belichick out on his 95-foot, $180 million yacht for a day in Antigua. So all signs seemed to be pointing in that direction.
However, Raheem Morris was later named the head coach. And Belichick was without a job.
ESPN released a bombshell report in April, detailing what went wrong.
"Blank spoke by phone, at least twice, to Robert Kraft. Among the NFL owners, Blank considers Kraft his closest friend. Publicly, Kraft and Blank have said Kraft expressed only support and offered praise of his former coach.
But in a conversation with Blank, Kraft delivered a stark assessment of Belichick's character, according to a source who spoke to two people: a close Kraft friend and a longtime Belichick confidant. The source quoted the Belichick source as saying, "Robert called Arthur to warn him not to trust Bill." That account was backed up, the source said, by the close Kraft friend.
Multiple sources said that Kraft spoke with "some candor" to Blank about Belichick, though the sources declined to elaborate. One source close to Belichick said Kraft "was a big part" of why the Falcons passed on hiring him.
The sources said Kraft made clear to Blank that "you'll never have a warm conversation with" Belichick, echoing what Bill Parcells told Kraft in 1996 when he wanted to bust the budget and hire Belichick. "Blank likes coaches who feel part of a family," a Falcons source said, "and it wasn't going to be that way with Bill," ESPN's Don Van Natta Jr., Seth Wickersham and Jeremy Fowler wrote.
So for Harris, he isn't surprised that teams across the NFL decided to hire the younger guys rather than Belichick. And he said what many others are probably thinking.
Former Patriots running back provides harsh but fair reality of Bill Belichick’s failed job search prior to 2024 season
He said what many others are probably thinking.
