With the Patriots off to their first 1-4 start in 23 years, there’s been some serious speculation that Bill Belichick might now be on the hot seat in New England. There’s even been at least one report suggesting that Robert Kraft may be open to firing Belichick if things don’t improve soon.
Belichick is a six-time Super Bowl winner who’s only known success for the better part of two decades, but things are falling apart quickly in New England. Belichick has mostly struggled since the departure of Tom Brady, who actually came to the defense of his former coach this week.
During the latest episode of the “Let’s Go” podcast, Brady said Belichick’s approach might not be working right now, but it’s still definitely the “right approach.”
“I think that he’s got a very consistent approach that he’s always taken and it’s the right approach,” Brady said. “It’s ‘try to prepare the players, give them the best opportunity to succeed.’ You get out there on the field, and in the end, the coaches, once the play is called in, the players got to go do it.”
Brady then pointed to the fact that teams can’t win with great coaching alone.
“It takes a great coaching staff to win, it takes great players to win, it takes great front office support to win,” Brady said. “It’s an organizational win. It’s an organizational loss. To [put a] a win or loss to one player — and they did that for me a lot with winning — and I always say, ‘It’s not about me, it’s about us.’ As a leader, when you lose you take the blame and you give the credit when you win. But at the end of the day it’s a team sport. It’s not golf. It’s not tennis. It’s not wrestling, It’s not diving… It’s the ultimate team sport.”
One interesting thing about Brady’s comments is that Belichick has struggled as a coach this year because Belichick the general manager isn’t doing a great job. CBSSports.com’s Tyler Sullivan wrote a great piece this week explaining why Kraft might lose trust in Belichick the GM before he loses trust in Belichick the coach, but since they’re one in the same, he might have to make the decision to move on.
Although the Patriots are off to their worst start since 2000, Brady doesn’t think Belichick will be changing much going forward.
“I think the results are different from what they’ve been from, but I know that he’s still got the same work ethic, he’s got the same coaching style,” Brady said. “I think the thing that I think, as I watch, not only the Patriots, but a lot of other things, football’s a hard sport.”
The seven-time Super Bowl winning quarterback also pointed out that when the Patriots struggled while he was there, it was usually easier to fix because he was touching the ball on every play.
“It was very different when I was in there, because I could control a lot of the outcome,” Brady said. “When I’m sitting here watching from afar, I realize, God, there’s a lot of variables, there’s a lot of things that need to go right in order to have team success and I was a part of a lot of those teams and I didn’t take any of those things for granted. I needed a great defense. I needed a great kicker. Obviously, I needed a great coach. I needed great receivers and a great O-line. If I was going to be successful as a player, I needed all those things.”
Right now, Belichick doesn’t really seem to have any of those things, which is likely why the Patriots are currently such a mess.
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Author: John Breech
October 12, 2023 | 2:40 pm
