Belichick The Coach Not Pleased With Belichick the GM Questions
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Patriots head coach Bill Belichick obviously handles more than one role for his football team, and he wasn’t pleased with some of the questions he was asked on Wednesday as they related to the club’s personnel moves.
The New England Patriots came out of Tuesday’s trade deadline without making any moves, with many believing they might try and move one or more assets to help them add future talent following their disappointing 2-6 start.
That saw Belichick get peppered with questions Wednesday pertaining to his role in the club’s decisions to stand pat with players like Josh Uche and Kyle Dugger, who were among names the team reportedly received inquiries on.
Belichick told reporters on Wednesday he spent Tuesday working on preparing for the Commanders, which led to multiple exchanges where it was clear the hope was to try and unblur the line between where his coaching duties and personnel decisions intersect.
It didn’t go well.
“Yeah, again, we talked about this the other day – the personnel department, coaching department,” said Belichick when asked if there wasn’t much to talk about on the trade front. “We talked about that last week, just another day of that.”
“If there was anything to talk about, we talked about it,” he continued after being asked if there simply weren’t any decisions for him to make. “If there wasn’t anything to talk about, then I worked on Washington. Personnel people worked on personnel things.”
He was then asked again about the fact that while the personnel department handles the trade discussions, he’s still the one who makes the final decisions.
“This is the same thing we talked about. We’ve talked about this 50 times,” said Belichick. “If they have something they think I need to know about, then we talk about it. If I have a personnel situation that I think they need to know about, I tell them about it, and then they look into it. It’s the same thing I’ve said the last 50 times we’ve talked about this. We work together when there’s something to work together on. When there isn’t something to work together on, then I coach, they do personnel.”
He was then asked to clarify, because again, Belichick is the general manager, yet he was deferring to the personnel department.
“Yes, if there’s something we need to talk about, then we talk about it,” he said. “If there isn’t something to talk about, we won’t just sit there and stare at each other all day. We both have other stuff to do, not both, but their department, the coaching department – there’s other things going on. We’re not just going to sit there and stare at each other and see if the phone’s going to ring or there’s going to be something bold on the news, or whatever. We have stuff to do.”
Despite how little he said in terms of details, that’s actually probably the most he’s been willing to even discuss on the topic during his entire coaching tenure. The fact he even provided a slight glimpse was interesting, albeit, he still didn’t fully say as much as many probably wish he had.
It’s a tough position to be in, and he’ll continue to be the one who will garner a lot of that scrutiny. The talent gap they’re dealing with offensively, both within their own division and across the league, remains a serious issue. It’s also one that will definitely need to be addressed this offseason when they eventually try and regroup.
However, it’s probably safe to say that in order to keep Robert Kraft from potentially deciding to part with Belichick by then, it’s likely going to require some serious positive steps forward in the coming weeks.
Even if the record doesn’t ultimately reflect it, there at least needs to be hope that the outlook for the future is better than it currently appears. His team needs to come out swinging over these last nine games, and at least land some blows along the way before it all comes to an end.
More importantly, he needs to give fans – and especially Kraft – a reason to believe 2024 won’t be more of the same.
For now, Belichick is “Just getting ready for Washington,” which was also the other thing he said multiple times Wednesday for everything else he wasn’t willing to discuss.
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