This is a very weird take on what has happened.
Kraft started interfering a lot and making bad decisions around 2014-2020. This pissed off Belichick. The fact that Kraft almost fired Belichick after the Eagles loss should tell you everything.
As for post 2020 and Belichick going scorched earth, did you forget the whole Patriots TV series that was described as a complete and total attack on Belichick even by notorious Belichick haters? I don't think Belichick is the one attacking here. Quite the opposite.
And the truth is Belichick had every right to be pissed at the Krafts. Even the Kraft's media mouthpiece Curran described the mutiny caused by the coaching staff splitting as Mayo was undermining Belichick at every turn.
This is most decidedly NOT the way to run a football team.
If you absolutely hate the guy, then fire him, but don't start mutinies and undercutting your coaches. When Kraft decided to reinstate Guerrero thereby undercutting the trainers and weight team, it sent a message to the entire locker room about the top down structure of the Patriots. From that moment on, the authority a football team needs was undercut.
I don't think so. Of course, neither you nor I was there, so here is my best take.
(I should say that, though your post is "team Belichick", I'm not "team Kraft". Importantly, this is a story with three sides: Belichick, Kraft and Brady.)
I don't think it's right to say that "Kraft started interfering a lot and making bad decisions around 2014-2020".
But I do think that all the signs are that there was a major crisis after the 2016, Deflategate and Clowndell season. The Guerrero episode was only a symptom.
Hubris 1.
My take is that Belichick really did want to ship out Brady and that, yes, Kraft (the Krafts?) probably did intervene. After that, what we saw from Belichick was a display of petulance. Banning Guerrero was just spite. What was much worse was that, after Garoppolo left, Belichick refused to make an effort to put a replacement for Brady in place (Danny Etling? hmm ...) or to keep him sweet. So when Brady decided that enough was enough, all they had was the shell of Cam Newton.
Belichick went mad in free agency in 2021 (Nelson Agholor, Jonnu Smith, etc.) but also drafted Mac Jones. Mac flourished under McDaniels and the Patriots make the post-season only to be annihilated in Buffalo. But McDaniels left and was allowed to take the whole of the offensive staff with him.
Hubris 2.
For 2022, Belichick decided he didn't need no stinking Offensive Coordinator or O-Line coach and put in two sock puppets in Joe Judge and Matt Patricia. He thereby destroyed Mac Jones and alienated many of the players in the locker room (Damien Harris, Brian Hoyer, Jakobi Meyers) whom he rewarded by shipping out at the end of the year.
For 2023, there was a new OC (B O'B) and a new offensive line coach, although we didn't see much of him. In any case, Mac Jones' confidence was gone, as was confidence in Mac Jones, and the team fell from 8-9 to 4-13.
Was that because Mayo was "undermining" Belichick? I don't see it, not least because the offense was obviously the biggest problem. (Yes, it's possible that Kraft had insisted that the team needed a proper offensive co-ordinator after the debacle of 2022. Was he wrong?)
At that point, Kraft decided that enough was enough, even for the greatest coach of all time. Belichick went Norma Desmond and, instead of reflecting on his failures and owning them, blamed everything on the enemies within -- chiefly, Robert Kraft.
OK. That's my outline take based on very schematic information. Perhaps Kraft could have managed Belichick better, but he also permitted him to make some terrible blunders -- blunders that would have cost anyone but the greatest coach of all time his job much earlier.
And yes, Kraft did, by that late stage, have a succession plan: a contract which stopped Mayo from going off to seek Head Coach opportunities elsewhere and Ron Wolf's little boy. Unfortunately, it wasn't a good one.
Mayo has gone and is now the Fall Guy for Eliot, who, unfortunately, survives.
