Bill Belichick opens up about losing a "shared vision" in final seasons with Patriots
FOXBORO -- Former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick touched on his successor, Jerod Mayo, being fired by the team after just one season on Monday, but ended harkening back to his final seasons in Foxboro in the process.
In Monday night's edition of the "Let's Go!" podcast with Jim Gray, Belichick said the decision to fire Mayo fell on Patriots was owner Robert Kraft. But he also pointed out that others in the organization have the ear of the owner.
"People that own the team have the choice to do whatever they want to do. The other people that were in place -- it's also the rest of the organization, it's not just the head coach," said Belichick. "So, you know, Robyn Glaser (the executive VP of football business and senior adviser to head coach in New England), Jonathan Kraft, whoever the other people are that are involved in those decisions and the structure of the organization.
"But you need that shared vision between ownership and the coaching and scouting, and that's when you can be successful," he added.
That's when Belichick went back to his final seasons with the Patriots.
Bill Belichick on a "shared vision" in New England
Belichick enjoyed that shared vision in New England for decades, and it led to those six Super Bowl banners hanging in Gillette Stadium. But he said that collaboration had evaporated by his final seasons with the Patriots.
"I had that up until about the last four years in New England. And when you have that shared vision and everybody pulling in the same direction, you have a chance and you can get a lot done," he said. "And even if you don't win at all, you're still really competitive.
"But when you're going in different directions, then that makes it really hard to keep up with everybody else," Belichick continued. "I think you look at the organizations and you can see the ones that are and the ones that aren't."
Those "last four years in New England" for Belichick came after Tom Brady left and went on to win a Super Bowl for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Kraft and Belichick were at odds over letting Brady go, and it was pretty obvious that Belichick didn't shared the same vision of the owner in his final seasons with the team.
New England went 29-38 in Belichick's final four seasons with just one playoff berth, when the Mac Jones-led Patriots got trounced by the Buffalo Bills in the wild card round. Bringing up that "shared vision" was essentially Belichick's way of saying that the final seasons of his run in New England weren't his fault.
To really hammer home his point, Belichick brought up his other former employer, the Cleveland Browns. Cleveland decided to move on from offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt and a number of other offensive coaches after the 2023 season, and took a massive step back in 2024.
"I think when you don't have any continuity, it's really hard to build," said Belichick. "It's hard to scout players because you have new coaches every year. It's hard to keep and acquire players and keep a consistent scheme when there are so many changes. That includes the coordinators too. Look at Cleveland. Last year, Cleveland went [11-6] and they fired their offensive staff, got rid of the offensive coaches and the quarterback in [Joe] Flacco. This year hired a new staff and now they're firing them again. So it's not always the head coach. Sometimes it's other members of the staff.
"It's hard without any continuity, it really is," Belichick concluded.
Belichick not surprised by short leash for head coaches
Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher also joined Belichick and Gray on the podcast, and while he didn't have any inside info on Mayo's firing, Cowher believes coaches should get more than a year to prove themselves.
"I always believed that giving a coach three years and seeing where youre trending is the appropriate thing to do, in my opinion," said Cowher. "Every situation is uniquely different, but it's a tough performance-based profession."
But Belichick isn't surprised with coaches getting a short leash in the NFL -- or all professional sports for that matter.
"There's so many coaches now that are being released after a year, year and a half, or two years in place, and you just don't see the Tom Landry situations anymore," he said. "That's just not like that in the NFL or honestly in the other professional sports."
