The Ringer NFL Show - The Patriots and Bill Belichick Part Ways | Dual Threat

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Nora Princiotti, Steven Ruiz, and Lindsay react to news of Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots parting ways after 24 seasons. They discuss where Belichick could coach next season, his tenure as a Patriot, and who could replace him in this wild coaching carousel. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Social: Kiera Givens and Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everyone. This is Craig Horlebeck from the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Join me, Danny Hifetz and Danny Kelly every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to help you win your draft, win your league, and most importantly, avoid that last place punishment. Follow the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify. Hello, and welcome to a special edition of a cool thread, but actually, I'm Nora Princiotti. I'm here with Stephen Ruiz, as always. And then Lindsay Jones is joining us. Hello, Lindsay. How are you doing? Hi, guys. I'm thrilled to be here. Well, and you are here because, and we're all here because this is a pretty historic day in the National Football League, something that was anticipated, but we didn't know when it was coming. Happened to this morning when Patriots owner Robert Kraft and I guess former Patriots coach Bill Belichick announced their mutual separation, parting of ways, whatever you want to call it, a decision that they said was made amicably over the last couple of days.

and ends a 24-year partnership that coincided with the most dominant stretch of football dynasty making that we've really ever seen. Stephen, do you have just like top-line thoughts on Bill Belichick being out in New England? Well, I think the first thing that the press conferences made clear is that he's still going to coach, or he still wants to coach if another team will give him a job. And I think that was the question I had. And I would react differently to this if I assume Belichick was going to walk away and this was the last we've seen of him. But it feels like this has been the conclusion that we've been headed for for three months now. So I'm not very shocked that it happened or when it happened or even how it happened. And I give them a lot of credit because there are a lot of egos involved in this in making today about the last 24 years as opposed to the last few seasons, which were really difficult and less. led to this moment.

The description as a mutual decision, I don't, I think is maybe some helpful, helpful framing. Because as you said, it seems like Bill Belichick definitely wants to continue coaching and probably would have continued on as the Patriots coach if he'd been given the opportunity, but he was not. again, it makes it a more meaningful and celebratory day for anyone who's watched New England over the last two decades, for it not to be a combative thing. So I genuinely do give everyone a lot of credit for being able to rise above that. But as you said, Bill clearly wants to continue coaching. Lindsay, what do you think is next for Bill Belichick? Yeah, this as a, this coaching

cycle is just completely unhinged. It's crazy. It's bananas. Interesting. I mean, I was talking to, I think, somebody on our staff. We're on like ninth hour of podcasting of the week. We really are. It's, it's really bizarre. And yeah, I mean, I was thinking this morning, I was like, oh, wait, there are football games in two days. Completely forgotten. But there's, you know, we're going to have, like, the chiefs and the dolphins on Saturday night. Now, that has been completely put onto the back burner by all the coaching news. But, you know, I think, you know, I was talking to somebody on our staff, about a week ago or so that it was like, you know, this coaching cycle might not be that interesting. We thought there were going to be all these openings and now there's, you know, maybe not going to be

as many as we expected. And it's, you know, it's a lot of these up and coming coordinators. And boom, here we are, you know, the middle of the week, you know, the first week of the off season for many of these teams. And we have a coaching market that includes Bill Belichick, Mike Brable, Pete Carroll, Jim Harbaugh. Like, it is a bonkers landscape right now, unlike we've seen in a really long time. I mean, this time last year, there was the Jim Harbaugh flirtations. Maybe he might come back. And then it was Sean Payton. But now we have a really, really interesting group of coaches that are out there. And there's a lot of teams that are making out known out there, right, that they're interested in Bill Belichick. And, you know, he might have the pick of these jobs if he wants it, which is a really interesting place to be in, given the state of the Patriots over the last few years.

We're not even done yet. Like, the Cowboys job could. could come open in a couple weeks. The Eagles job could be questioned at least in a week. It's crazy. This could get even more unhinged. Like, I'm expecting, like, coaches that we haven't heard from in 15 years to come out of the woodwork. And be, like, I'd like an interview, too.

Like, Don Schuller should just, he should interview for a job. Just to troll a Belichick. So I think the Falcons is one potential destination that's been thrown around. There's some reported interest there. it's an interesting possibility just because they are one of the teams that has a head coaching vacancy, but not at least right now,

a GMing vacancy. And an open question is how that fits into Bill Belichick's plan for himself. The Chargers, I don't know that I've seen anything indicating clear reported interest from them, but that's a destination that makes a lot of sense. The one team that has gotten it out there

that they're not interested is the commanders who just jumped at the opportunity to say, oh, Bill Belichick, no thanks. We don't want that guy. So message received. And let's see, am I missing anyone else who could be a potential landing spot for Belichick, depending on whether or not he means that full roster control in addition to the head coaching job? Yeah, I mean, Carolina has both head coach and general manager jobs open now and a lot of money to

spend, that's the biggest football project. I can't imagine that Bill looks at that roster and is like, yeah, that's a place I want to go if I have other options or David Teper as a man who would like to, you know, work alongside if he had his options available. But that is the one that really is kind of like open for full control as well. It's an interesting thing to figure out just in terms of what he wants. And the TEPPER angle, to me right now, just after watching all of the press conferences and statements from today. I wonder if it looms a little larger than I would have expected just because Belichick really did speak at length and emotionally about the partnership with Robert Kraft and about the not

only the resources, but the latitude that he'd gotten from the Kraft family over the years in New England. And I do wonder if that puts in a sharper, in a sharper, in a sharper, frame how he might feel about pitching his wagon to someone like David Tepper. I also think the compelling interest is going to be that he is 15 wins away from Shula. And the fact that he has detached from a Patriots team that needs to rebuild probably means that he can get there faster if he chooses the right landing spot. I mean, Stephen, as a Justin Herbert enthusiast, I feel like I have to ask you about the

Chargers. Like, what do you think? It's a real possibility now. I hope it happens. As a fan of just good football, I want to see Justin Herbert play meaningful games. I want to see Bill Belichick coaching meaningful games again. It's been a while since we've seen that.

Maybe it was the last Super Bowl they won where we really saw that. But in terms of the Chargers' needs, one of their biggest needs over the last couple of years has just been tackling, like just been learning how to tackle. And the one thing you could say about the Patriots over the past couple years is they never forgot how to tackle.

They've been one of the best tackling teams in the NFL. So in terms of fit, like, from either side, like, obviously Belichick would want a quarterback like Herbert. And I think the Chargers should want a coach like Belichick. So it makes sense to me. It's going to be fascinating when, like, is he going to be brought in for interviews? Like, he's just any other, like, he's, Idro Evero. Like, it's just such a bizarre moment that we're in where all of these, like, Titans of the game are just available. And they're just, in some ways, they're like any other coaching candidate,

but in other ways, they are not at all. He's like hopping on a Zoom with Mark Davis. Right. Like, it's so bizarre. He's the golden bachelor. What was the guy's name? I didn't watch a show. Gary.

Gary. It was spelled like, it was G-E-R-R-Y, but it's Gary. Right. I mean, I would watch that in season two. Not going to lie. I mean, it really would be a great. great, you know, hard-knox variant of Bill Belichick going around the league, talking to teams, pitching himself, pitching his services.

Well, as an editor on our site, I should probably, we should probably not put our best ideas out on the pod before we put them on the site, but I'm here for it. What if Belichick interviews and doesn't get a job, like, he gets like the enemy or something, like he doesn't, he wasn't good enough in the interviews? Or like, whatever happened with Jim Harbaugh in the Vikings two years ago where he got in the building and just realized how weird this guy is. And we don't want that. I mean, look, I think there's an open question of whether or not, because we're at this juncture where we're talking about Belichick and to a certain extent, Pete Carroll, Harbaugh is a little bit in a different

bucket in some ways, as is Rabel. But these, these coaches who all have some element of their program builders, they're sort of disciplinarians. They're kind of old school, whatever that that means to you. And it's funny because in the one sense, they are the most, they seem like they're going to be the most coveted coaches, or at least some of the most coveted candidates. And I don't necessarily think that's wrong. But it's also interesting because that philosophy, that old school philosophy, in each case is part of why they got fired. So in the one sense, it feels like, you know, we're about to have the 25th Super Bowl of the century, right?

It's this like changing of the guard where, I mean, other than Joe Flacco, like all of the playoff quarterbacks, I guess Stafford, but like there's this real new guard that has taken over the NFL. And some of these guys who just got fired are kind of the last vestiges of the old guard. So it feels like we're entering this new era. But then actually maybe we're not at all.

because they're the coaches that everybody wants to go higher. And I don't know that I have a question for either of you because we just don't know what it's going to be until we find out how many people get jobs. You know, does Pete Carroll get another job offer? Does he just stay in this symbolic role, quote unquote, upstairs in Seattle? Whether or not this era of coaches continues to have a strong imprint

on the league as a whole is a very open question right now. and it's going to be one of the most interesting things to follow this coaching cycle, but also, you know, into next season, because it's going to define sort of who the power players in the league are. And part of that has to do with what happens next in New England, where Gerard Mayo is reportedly the front runner. He's the linebacker's coach who has extended last offseason in a move that kind of signaled that the Patriots viewed,

him as much of the era parent, let's say, as there was. Lindsay, what do you think comes next in Patriotland as they attempt to move on from the Belichick era? Yeah, I'm so intrigued by this, because this is not the standard situation where you just hire a new coach and he comes in and he might bring his system, he might bring in a new strength and conditioning coach, a couple assistants. this is the opportunity for potentially a coach to come in and completely overhaul an entire football operations from top to bottom. Because when we talk about the Patriot Way, right,

you know, that phrase, that was Bill, right? I mean, there's so much of the dynasty that was Bill Belichick and Tom Brady and how you divide up that stuff. But the Patriot Way was really, in almost every aspect, was the Belichick way. And he ran that organization on the football side, kind of unconventionally. I mean, his staff was smaller. His staff was filled with guys that he had known and worked with for a long time. His sons were on his staff. And so my big question is, what are the crafts thinking right now about where they want this organization to go? Do they want to kind of continue the Patriot Way without Belichick? Is it possible to continue the Patriot Way without Belichick? Do you want to continue the Patriot way, given the way

that the last few years have gone. And I think we're going to learn a lot about what they want based on who they start interviewing here over the next few days if they decide to, you know, really limit their pool to Mayo, Brian Flores, Mike Grable, people who are kind of already within that Patriots culture or if they take this as an opportunity

to explore candidates from the Shanhan Tree or, you know, the Ben Johnson, some, you know, Mike McDonald's, who is parbi, you know, like, I don't, I could kind of see him. I'm fitting into like... Pastiliternet. Yeah. Like, you know, I just,

I'm very curious to see if they take this as an opportunity to really overhaul this whole thing or see if they can hang on to a little bit of that, you know, Belichick organizational magic for a little longer. I feel like McDonald is the perfect foil for Belichick because he kind of offers the same, I guess, gifts just at a younger age.

And I wonder if the Patriots do interview him or what other the other teams I'd interview him. I know Washington already has and they've said they're not interested

in Bill. That kind of tells me that the league is looking at McDonald kind of I don't know, maybe they value him more than a Belichick

at this point because he does, like I said, he does offer the same strengths and without those weaknesses that led to his fire. I also think in his case he represents a more long-term

potential solution. I think part of the thing in Washington is that they have this, they are completely wiping the slate clean. right? Because they have a high draft pick. They have a lot of cap space. And this is kind of the chance for a new owner to

put a stamp on the organization for the first time. And the thing about Belichick is he might have quite a few more years in him. But at most, that's what, five? And that's longer than a lot of head coaches last in jobs. But I think if you're Josh Harris,

you kind of want, my read on that situation is that they are positioning themselves to hire someone. that they can view as their potential Bill Belichick, but they don't want somebody else's. But someone like McDonald, who's younger, fits better into that framework. In terms of New England,

one of the most interesting things I thought Robert Kraft said when he took questions today was he was asked if he's considering adding a formalized general manager. And he didn't give an answer, but he said that is one of the biggest. things that we have to decide. And it would be really interesting if they do kind of stay within the family,

go with someone like Mayo. If they didn't add a formalized general manager, just because Bill was so all-powerful where he controlled, I mean, every personnel decision, every coaching decision, every hiring decision, but also stuff that had to do with logistics,

where do they stay? Like, how do they operate when they're on the road? He just had his hands in every single facet of that organization. And if you are going to hire someone like Gerard Mayo, who is a really popular guy, but is relatively inexperienced, he's going to have that ultimate power too. And he's going to adopt this structure where I don't, I think it might be underappreciated how weird the Patriots organization.

organizational structure is it is not it is very small and it is actually for a place that has so much palace intrigue and so much bill versus tom versus craft versus blah blah blah blah blah set wickersham story me generally speaking it's not a lot of place it's not a place where further down the org chart there's a ton of infighting just because it's very clear what people's roles are. But there's also relatively little empowerment in those roles where if you work there, you know, and this is what people there say they like about working there. You know what your job is. But also, you could be the fourth or fifth most senior person in the personnel department. And like, you might not be in the draft room. You might not know what the board looks like.

Because Bill knows what the board looks like and it sort of doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. And the idea that Gerard Mayo, because he was a storied Patriots linebacker, he played for Bill, everybody loves him, he's, he's been great as a coach, he was great in business, that he's going to take over that role seems crazy to me. And I'm not saying that that's what they're going to do. But if they are going to try to sort of parachute someone who comes off the Belichick tree, there's going to have to be a lot. lot of thought given to how you sort of just bolster out the organization as a whole because it has been so lean for so long because Bill makes all the important decisions. Well, one of the reasons that, you know, one of the knocks on Bill, although you could also potentially look at it as one of the reasons that he also has, you know, is really good that

he doesn't have a coaching tree because these guys that have, you know, been the highly sought off of coordinators under him have gone other places. and tried to, they've done what they know. They look around and they say, this is how Bill runs an organization. But they weren't in everything. They, you know, there are some coaches and general managers who very much empower the people under them to, like, take over to know what they're doing other places. And I don't think that was ever the style there.

And for as, I guess, like, probably humiliating it was for Josh McDaniels to fail twice at this, for Joe Judge, for Matt Patricia, you know, those cases. to have it happen potentially in the future to, like, Robert Kraft's hand chosen guy to replace Bill within that same building. If it goes poorly, it could be really rough, I think. And I just, I hope that Robert and Stephen Kraft are taking this Jonathan Kraft. Steven. Jonathan. Excuse me.

Sorry. I hope that the crafts are looking at this as a chance to really set their next head coach up. success and an entire organization up for success and not be tied to the nostalgia of the past 25 years. And I think to your point about like the other assistants who went on and failed, like not really being privy to, I guess, the Belichick way or at least behind the scenes, there was that story when Josh McDaniels spurned the Colts and came back to New England about Belichick kind of like opening up to him and like giving him this dossier that he had put together as a head coach. And that kind of like speaks to him withholding, I don't know, not information, but sort of like the method to his madness over the years. Yeah, it's not something that traditionally he's focused on. And in some ways, that's probably to their credit. Again, I've heard one thing that I've always found interesting that's been articulated to me over the years by people there is there is a, there's a real positive side for them to.

all of the secrecy and all of the hierarchy, where it just eliminates a lot of, a lot of like catfighting that happens within organizations. Because two guys have jobs that are kind of competing with each other and one of them can sort of go up the chain and talk to the general manager and backstab that person and get a little bit more power and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's not set up in a way that leads to a lot of that. But again, the cost of that is the buck stops for the buck stops and the people underneath the key decision makers are given a lot of individual tasks and told complete this task.

They're not told build a defense, build a younger roster, help like they don't get those types of holistic responsibilities. and I think it's fair to say that over the years it has contributed to the lack of a pipeline that has come out of New England and now factors into where they go from here because it is an open question at least to me of whether in I keep wanting to say firing Bill Belichick. They didn't fire Bill Belichick. They mutually parted ways. But I think Bill Belichick would still be the head coach, the New England Patriots, if he'd been given the opportunity. In doing that, are you saying goodbye to the man and someone who maybe had outstate is welcome with some players who maybe wasn't the best person to be in charge of a young and struggling team because he is

such a perfectionist and, you know, the other word for that is hard ass. Or are you saying goodbye to the philosophy? and if you're not, which the interest in Mayo to me says that they're leaning to not, it's going to be interesting to see how it works out just because even craft, when talking about what, you know, he was asked what Bill has taught him more than anything else. And his answer was sort of he's so smart about so many things, but he was talking about what initially impressed him. And one thing he brought up was that Bill had an understanding of the salary cap when that was very new.

And that was something that a lot of coaches just not only didn't have a holistic understanding of, just didn't think about. But then there was a little bit of an offhand comment in Kraft's answer where he said, now a lot of his younger contemporaries have caught up with that. And I have a question, certainly about whether the things that made the Belichick era so dominant are still the types of advantages that they were 10, 15, 20 years ago, because every organization has cap guys and they know about the comp pick formula and they're good at identifying these small edges. And so I wonder if trying to find someone with the same strengths is the right direction to go in.

I mean, Stephen, do you have an opinion on that? Do you think they would be better suited one way or the other in finding a young scheme guy versus an old school culture coach or a third category? Yeah, I don't know if it matters. And like, it's kind of hard to say what Kraft is going to go for because he's hired two coaches as New England's own. One was P. Carroll. and the other one was Bill Belichick,

and I feel like those two guys are totally different on other ends of the spectrum. But what's interesting is he had Bill Parcells when he first bought the team. And part of the reason why Parcells left was because Robert Kraft meddled in personnel decisions. And Parcells was like, if you want me to cook the meal,

you have to let me buy the groceries. That was like his famous saying. And then he hires Pete Carroll, presumably because he wanted to continue to have that pool over the coach. But then when he fires Pete Carroll, he goes back to Belichick and gives him all the power in the organization,

which Parcells wanted. So I don't know where he's going to go with this one. It could go either way. Actually, it's funny. Craft went out of his way in his press conference to sort of correct the record on that because somebody brought up something similar. And he said, actually, I just want to clarify,

he didn't have all the power until after the third Super Bowl, which I'm trying to remember if that was ever really made clear. the broader point certainly stands. Bill was empowered in a way that was a reaction to the issues that Parcells had had. But it was just a funny thing

where he was like, by the way, he didn't get full latitude immediately. But did I interrupt you? Keep going, sorry? No, that's all I had. I think if I'm in his shoes, I think I'm going back to what I was thinking before I interviewed

Bill Belichick, because he didn't hire Bill Belichick as we know him. When he hired Bill Belichick, his reputation was as a defensive coach, as an ex-as-nose guy, as a game planner. I wonder if he goes back to that. This was a failed Browns coach. I mean, his reputation was bad. Yeah, it was bad. It was in the dirt, but his reputation as like a strategist was not in the dirt. That was the one thing that wasn't. So it's kind of interesting that the thing that would attract teams to Belichick now wasn't the thing that attracted Kraft to Belichick back then. Because what you want in Belichick, you hire him now is the leader, the guy.

that runs the organization. And that's why he failed in Cleveland because he couldn't get along with anybody. So I don't know. I don't know where it goes. Stephen, can I ask you a football question about Bill Belichick that I've been thinking about and talking to people about over the last couple days? Is that, you know, it's when we've been considering Bill Belichick's legacy and like what he's meant to the NFL and potentially what it's going to mean for him going forward wherever his new team is. When you think of like Bill Belichick, the defensive mind, what, you know, I guess historically has he done that maybe has like left a mark on the modern NFL?

And then maybe what is he still doing when you look at those last two years that, you know, if you're Arthur Blank with the Falcons or the Spanos is in L.A. that you would say, you know, not just because he's Bill Belichick, but like this is the guy that I want like game planning on a week to week basis for me next year. Yeah, the thing with him is I don't think about like schemes. specific schemes, I think about like specific games and game plans. Like the, like the Rams Super Bowl, the first Super Bowl win, the second Ram Super Bowl, the when he was DC for the Giants and they upset the bills, like that's what I think about with Bill. I think that's the reason why he was so good. It wasn't because he mastered some scheme.

Like Brandon Staley, for instance, was known for a certain style of defense. And then when other teams adapted that style, like he didn't stand out anymore and it came about talent. That was never the issue with Bill. and he's just a coach's coach. Like, I don't know how else to put it. I'm not intrigued by the Patriot Way stuff. I think that stuff was way overblown. They continued to win when they didn't follow the Patriot Way.

So I don't know. It's X as a nose for me. And he's still got that. Yeah, I think he still has that. Like, he's shown it at times. It doesn't happen as often, but there have been times when he has good game plan, like against the Dolphins earlier this year

when other teams were struggling to stop Mike McDaniel. He kind of laid out a bit of a blueprint for the rest of the league. And we saw Buffalo use a similar style. So I think he still has his fastball in terms of game planning. I mean, he's obsessed. Like, it's been funny to talk to people there over the last couple of days. And the thing that keeps getting, you know,

as people get a little bit nostalgic too, like the thing that gets brought up is all these stories of, oh, I went into Bill's office for XYZ reason. And he was like grinding tape of whatever. Or we were talking about, some college game that happened 15 years ago and all of a sudden he's irate because he's thinking about how the linebackers

were such sloppy tacklers in that game and he's just like he's truly obsessed with the game like he is obsessed with quality football and that person is still very much there and very much willing, not even willing to do the work.

I don't think he's capable of not doing it. Like, he can't, he can't, he can't not grind Army Navy tape even when it's not his job. Like, he's, he's just not ready to go out on the boat and hang. And the thing with him, there's like a bit of,

like, humbleness to his knowledge of scheme because I think he is the type of coach who would grind Army and Navy and Navy. Navy tape and expect to be able to find something he can use in that tape. And like when he talks about like the special teams evolution in the 60s, like, I think he thinks about that stuff because he's still applying that knowledge to the game today. And because he doesn't have and and Bill Belichick has a healthy, healthy ego as a man. But he doesn't have that, he doesn't have scheme arrogance. He doesn't have I run my scheme and I want to win with my scheme to show you how good my scheme is. He doesn't

care. He's just going to do what he thinks is the best way to win. Now, I think, and it's shown itself more on the offensive side of the ball, I think his commitment to fundamentally sound and good football has come into an interesting conflict with having a young and struggling and inexperienced team. And it's shown up more on the offensive side, certainly. And maybe part of that is because that's just not fundamentally where he's made his bones as a coach. I think there's an open question of if he's the best guy suited

to coach someone up and build up their confidence. Because I, you know, there's this sort of conversation about whether he can connect with young players anymore. and sometimes I get confused by the tone of that conversation because it seems like there's this idea that if a player's under 25, they like can't run laps or something or, you know, they didn't walk uphill both ways to school. But I do think that there is something about there's a younger generation of players who don't have as much automatic trust in the people they work for, which is just, I mean, that's not football players. That's just, that is a generational trend where like the Gen Z players that are coming into the league are part of a group of kids who don't necessarily believe that the world has their best interests at heart and their employers have their best interests at heart. And I don't know that when you don't have the results to say, no, this is what I'm doing for you. like this is how I'm I'm going to help you get a second contract or win a Super Bowl or accomplish

the things that you want to do. I do think that Bill's bedside manner is like really tough if you're going to try to convince a group of those players that no, if you work for this guy and you give him everything you can, he's going to do the same thing in return. So I'm a little split on like whether or not, you know, I don't think the game has passed him by, but I do think that there is something in the idea that if you're young and sloppy and have a lot of learning to do, he's just going to kind of say, like, we can't have this. This is unacceptable. You're not playing next week. And I think it erodes trust really, really, really fast. And they've struggled with that a lot. So that's a question that I would have if I were an owner considering

bringing him into a different building. But it's another reason why I like the Chargers. I because it's just like they have Justin Herbert. They're going to be good enough where you can sell the proof of concept of, you should work hard and you should give everything you have because we are competing for a Super Bowl and we have the pieces. I think it's a little bit more complicated if we talk about like a Carolina where there's more rebuilding to do. But how fair do you think that is, like the perception that Bill can't connect with these players?

Because like the team this year, which was very young, got better as the season went along, which suggests that they were buying into what he was saying, even despite the failure at the beginning of the year, where all of us were like, this team stinks. This team stinks of the worst team in the league. Pelichick is, we left them for dead basically,

and they became competitive. I think some of it is fair. I don't think all of it is fair, but I think some of it where, I mean, when they struggled this year, and yes, this was more prominent earlier in the season,

but when they struggled, you know, he becomes much more conservative in, fourth down decision making. And explains it a way as they're not capable of this. They're not good enough to do this. In a broader sense, there are some recent examples in personnel of like,

okay, Jacoby Myers was one of the best receivers, bars not high, but one of the best receivers that they have taken themselves and brought in there themselves and coached up and got something out of. and then they just let him go to Las Vegas, didn't want to pay him, then paid Juju basically as much as they, as Jacoby was going to make in with the Raiders.

And it sends a signal that if you work hard and you accomplish things and you do it in New England, there's not necessarily reward there. I don't know that I can explain this other than he is a defensive head coach and maybe just like gets it a little bit more on that side of the ball. this seems to be more concentrated with offensive players. And that's where they've had issues with Trent Brown, issues with some of the younger receivers,

even like Kendrick Bourne. And now some of that gets mixed up with the Matt Patricia and the Joe Judge of it all. And that's going back to last year too. But there have just been a lot of headbutting with players on the offensive side of the ball. I do think that there's something to be said for that theory. Yeah, it's so hard because that tends to happen with losing teams.

And when it does happen with winning teams, it just doesn't get out and we don't hear it as often. The other thing, like, the idea that the game has passed by on the offensive side, I think it made sense because of the type of offense they were running. Like they had a fullback on the field, they had tight ends on the field, they were running the ball a bunch. But you look around the league in 2023, A lot of the offenses that were celebrating this year

are running an offense like that. Like the 49ers have a fullback on the field. They have tight ends on the field. Miami has a fullback on the field. Baltimore has a fullback on the field. I think he kind of was ahead of the curve in that way. He saw defenses go into the lighter personnel too high. He built a team that could beat that.

Now, you got players wrong. I don't think there's anything schematic where anything has passed him by. It's all personnel to me. Like, you drafted, like, that's the clear sign that he was, the game had passed by. is drafting Mac Jones. Right. Because that type has not worked in a decade.

And now, look, I mean, I think was Bill jumping for joy about drafting Mac Jones? I think he was totally fine with it. That was not an ownership decision. They wouldn't have traded up for Mac Jones. They were very happy Mac Jones was there at 15. They felt like, okay, we got to take a quarterback here.

It's both. to assign Mac to Bill because I think they felt like they had to take a chance. They had to go quarterback when he was there and they hadn't made a trade. But they would not have, they would not have traded up for Mack Jones, which I do think is sort of instructive. But I mean, they took him and the rest is history. But I agree with you that it's the personnel conversation is the instructive one. and it's going to be one of the biggest questions to answer for any team that's going to hire him. And then also on the Patriot side, just in terms of how they reorganize there.

We've talked through a lot of the possible scenarios here and a lot of the angles. And so maybe we call it a day in a minute. But Lindsay, I mean, this is sort of football history that we're going through here. Do you have any just like final thoughts or how you're feeling in this moment? Yeah. I mean, I have a feeling that I was invited on the podcast today because I'm old. And it was like looking around and like, wait, it's been around a while. So I think that might be.

But like, yeah, I mean, it is. And this week, and this is what I've been, I've been working through writing this. Hopefully we'll have this on the site at some point is that, you know, Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, Nick Saban, they're all very different individuals, very different. coaches. There are some very, you know, certainly some similarities amongst them. But the fact that I don't want to say we're losing them, even though apparently that's how people in Alabama are reacting the way they're like leaving flowers at a base of a statue for Nick Saban. Like, and look, Belichick is going to be on a sideline next year, but it's going to feel different.

Football as we know it is going to feel different in 2024 and beyond because three head coaches who were at the center of so many defining moments of this century won't be in those places anymore. And it's just, it's a lot that is all happening at once. And, you know, one of the things we've been thinking about talking about was, you know, five-ish years ago or so we kind of really started this changing the guard of quarterbacks. And now it's really happening for that, the defining coaches of the first part of this century. And as long as Mike Tomlin is still here, as long as Andy Reid is still coaching,

John Harbaugh, you know, there are some of those guys still, but it does feel like kind of there very much is this change in process. And, you know, I guess with Belichick, like, we've known this was coming, right? Even though there wasn't, you know, definitive, solid reporting, you could feel it, right? You've written the pieces, Nora, you guys have talked about it on so many shows all season that it felt like this was the end. But even when you can feel it coming

to see it actually like cross your Twitter timeline and you see the press conferences, it's like, it's a lot. And then on the heels of Nick Sabin and Pete Carroll also coming within the same span of 24 hours, it's just it feels like a really historic and, you know, just landscape shifting day

for the league as we know it. Stephen? Yeah, I think the fact that it happened right on the heels of Sabin and Carol kind of walking away from their jobs. makes it feel like more of a retirement. If it's not the end, it's the beginning of the end from Belichick.

But at the same time, I almost feel like if he lands with a good team, like save the Chargers and he's with Justin Herbert, it's almost like we're getting Belichick back. Because the last couple of years, he didn't coach in any, like, huge games. And I feel like seeing him in the AFC title game or a playoff game against Mahomes

and he gets a chance to like game plan against him and see if he still has it. I think that's cool. And I think we would not have seen that if he stayed in doing it. Because that team was going on. I don't want the last memory that we have of him as a coach being him all bundled up and in the snow and losing 17 to 3 to the Jets. Like I want to see another like classic Bill Belichick screaming and yell and throw in a tablet, you know, finding some obscure part of the rulebook that he can, you know, use to his advantage. I want to see that again because that arrow football was really freaking fun.

and as somebody who lives in AFC West Country, if he wants to come out here, it'd be great. I'm all for the content. He can't go out with Bailey Zappy as his last quarterback. No, absolutely not. Well, for something that had been kind of a, I don't necessarily say a downer story all season, because there is some element that's incredibly interesting

about just sort of watching the end of this historic run in New England. But for something that I had really, felt like was going to become a knockdown dragout fight and be messy and finger pointing. I'm really impressed that this has ended on a note that not only feels sort of respectful and celebratory, but also that does kind of highlight that, yeah, Belichick might have something to offer another team and be in those excellent games. next season or going forward. And also that the Patriots probably are ripe for some kind of reset.

And they have a lot of questions to answer. But there's a possibility that a clean slate, you know, they've got a high draft pick, they've got some cap room. They get the right person in there. And maybe Patriots football becomes more interesting than it's been the last year as well. But I'll just say that like, look, I worked there for five years. I definitely, I've had more and better career opportunities because I got to cover all of those Super Bowls and cover a team that was really, really relevant. And I am, you know, I have like a cold frozen heart and I just think that everyone is like trying to, I just think that coaches are trying to promote themselves and get as far as they can.

I was like kind of moved by how they handled it and the fact that they managed to kind of rise above all of that. So it's cool to just go through a historic day in the NFL. And it'll be really interesting to see what comes next. This has been, I'm going to say triple threat on the Ringer NFL show feed. Thank you so much, Lindsay, for hopping on the pod. Thank you, Stephen. Thanks for letting me crash. I appreciate it.

Always. Thank you, Stephen, for going into definitely hour two, if not hour three or four or whatever, of us podcasting together. No offense, but hopefully see you Saturday and not before because it means that there won't have been any other crazy breaking stories. And thank you to Stefan Anderson for producing this episode and so many others to Connor Nevins and Arjuna Rampaw for their additional production supervision. Ben and Sheel will be up next. They'll have an extra point taken before Stephen and I are back on. Saturday to recap the Wild Card Games and then we'll be back again on Sunday.

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