The Clock Is Striking Midnight As Patriots Oust Bill Belichick

The New England Patriots were an unimpressive franchise before Bill Belichick and Tom Brady stepped in and turned them into a national powerhouse. With Brady long gone and Belichick now leaving after 23 years as head coach, it appears that the team is already back to square one.

At a press conference Thursday morning, Belichick received a respectful sendoff from Patriots owner Robert Kraft. After the 4-13 season New England had in 2023, most coaches would have been unceremoniously fired. But as countless announcers have said over the course of the season, Belichick will not be remembered for his final years in Foxborough.

“We had a vision of building a winner, building a championship football team here, and that’s exceeded my wildest dreams and expectations, the amount of success we were able to achieve together through a lot of hard work and contributions of so many people,” Belichick said. “I’m very proud of that and always have those memories. I’ll carry those with me the rest of my life.”

With nine Super Bowl appearances and six championships in the 21st century, Belichick will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the greatest head coaches of all time. Many people will go a step further than that. Together with Brady, the pair formed the greatest partnership in NFL history and dominated the league for two decades.

With these two surefire Hall-of-Famers defining a generation of professional football, the Patriots have come to be associated with dynastic success. Before Belichick or Brady, however, New England was another name in the crowd for most of its history.

Highlights of the Patriots franchise in the 20th century include two trips to the Super Bowl: one in 1985, when they were manhandled by the legendary Chicago Bears, and another in 1996, when they lost to Brett Favre’s Green Bay Packers. Neither Patriots team is remembered well, and beyond them, the franchise was painfully average, enjoying stretches of moderate success and overwhelming failure in roughly equal measure.

Belichick’s most recent teams resemble the old Patriots far more than the teams he built in the previous two decades. Without Brady, the team has never been more than ordinary. Since the team snuck into the playoffs in 2021, Belichick has taken a large amount of blame for New England’s spiral. But in reality, it’s impossible to discern whether Belichick has lost his touch or whether he simply hasn’t had the talent, particularly at quarterback, at his disposal to compete in an improving AFC East division.

Mac Jones, coached at Alabama by Belichick’s former protege Nick Saban, had the impossible task of replacing Brady as the team’s franchise quarterback in 2021. Things were promising at first, as Jones made the Pro Bowl in his rookie season and led New England to the playoffs. He has regressed in each year since, however, culminating in the Patriots having one of the worst offenses in football in 2023.

Jones may not be a Patriot next season, leaving the team with very limited options at the quarterback position. New England can draft someone with the third overall pick in the 2023 draft, sign someone in free agency or try again with Bailey Zappe, Jones’ backup who helped the team limp home this season.

Elsewhere on the offense, running back Rhamondre Stevenson should return from injury and reassume his duties as the team’s all-purpose runner. The team’s receiving core is especially weak, however, currently being led by rookie wideout Demario Douglas. Belichick was famous for utilizing underrated pass catchers in his offense, but the depth chart he will leave behind simply does not match up to the league’s serious contenders.

On defense, the Patriots suffered several injuries and most notably lost promising rookie cornerback Christian Gonzalez in his fourth game of the season. Despite this, the Patriots still fielded one of the better defenses in the NFL this year. This was a strength for Belichick throughout his tenure, but the team’s stubborn defense could do very little when the offense was in such disarray.

The Patriots’ next head coach will have to make a litany of crucial decisions in a very short period, which could make or break the team for years to come. Regardless of who the replacement ends up being, they will face criticism, which can be boiled down to them not being Belichick. Just as Jones could never live up to Brady, New England’s next head coach will likely face stratospheric expectations and could easily crumble under them.

In 2000, Belichick arrived in New England and quickly turned the team into a star-making juggernaut. In 2024, he could be leaving behind the proverbial pumpkin in his wake.