Patriots Parting Ways With Bill Belichick

On the morning of January 11th, Adam Schefter of ESPN reported that after twenty-four years, the New England Patriots and Bill Belichick would be parting ways. The decision did not come as a shock to most Patriots fans, especially me. The Patriots' four wins this season marked their least amount of wins in a season since 1992, when they had two. Many fans are accustomed to the winning nature of New England. For twenty years, the Patriots dominated the AFC. They won with well-disciplined players who bought into the “do your job” mentality. This year, with the on-field product and the roster that was put together by Belichick, was lackluster, unfocused, and undisciplined. Each week, players piled on penalties and made mistakes that would not be seen in earlier parts of Belichick’s career. Every week, the lack of offensive firepower was exposed, and every week, the lockdown New England defense was let down by this terrible offense. The letdown of a season that was the 23-24 Patriots was not even close to being reflective of Belichick’s 24-year Patriots tenure, the greatest coaching tenure in NFL history. Belichick won six Super Bowls and a total of 266 games with New England and solidified himself as the greatest coach ever to do the job. Belichick remains 26 wins behind Don Shula for most regular season wins of all time. I believe that Belichick is far from done in his coaching career. I think that he wants to prove that he can win away from New England without Tom Brady, and win 26 more to pass the great Don Shula. I was surprised to hear that Bill was not chosen as the next coach for the Atlanta Falcons. I thought the Falcons gave him the best chance of passing Shula. They have such great weapons on both sides of the ball and are truly a quarterback away from being serious contenders in the NFC. As of right now, there are just two head coaching positions open, the Washington Commanders and the Seattle Seahawks. The Commanders spot is more likely for Belichick, and I think that team gives him the best chance of winning. They have young players and a high draft pick in this year’s draft. There have been talks earlier this season about Belichick potentially joining this Washington team. Despite the Commanders being a more likely target for Bill, I think it is more likely that he will not fill a coaching vacancy this season, instead opting to wait one more year. Some interesting teams to look at for Bill next year would be the Eagles and Cowboys. Both teams had extremely disappointing ends to their seasons and have some of the best rosters in the league, and they’re maybe one great head coach away from getting over the hump. 

Going back to the Patriots' side of things, just one day after parting ways with Belichick, the Patriots hired former player Jerod Mayo as their new head coach, making him the youngest head coach in the NFL. Mayo played eight seasons for the Patriots as a middle linebacker and was a defensive captain for seven of those years. Mayo was regarded as a great leader and great teammate during his career. In 2019, he was hired as the Patriots inside linebackers coach and held that position until he was promoted to head coach. Mayo is obviously a great defensive mind, and he will likely use a similar defensive scheme to Belichick's. It will be very interesting to see what he does with the offense and who he hires to fill the coordinator positions. Mayo has a bright future ahead of him and has great potential to bring the Patriots back to the place they are so accustomed to being.