{"id":58644,"date":"2025-02-27T12:38:42","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T17:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patsfans.com\/patriots\/blog\/?p=58644"},"modified":"2025-02-27T13:58:43","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T18:58:43","slug":"former-patriots-player-talks-about-hanging-up-on-belichick-in-crazy-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patsfans.com\/patriots\/blog\/2025\/02\/27\/former-patriots-player-talks-about-hanging-up-on-belichick-in-crazy-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Patriots Player Talks About Hanging Up on Belichick in Crazy Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former New England Patriots<\/strong><\/a> running back Stevan Ridley apparently got off on the wrong foot with the club during his rookie year after arriving to the facility above the playing weight Bill Belichick had in mind for him,<\/strong><\/a> and one mistake he later made during his career apparently nearly saw him let go from the team.<\/p>\n

Ridley recently appeared on the Games With Names<\/em><\/strong><\/a> podcast with Julian Edelman and talked about an incident that was severe enough that he was nearly cut following a post on social media.<\/p>\n

Anyone who follows Ridley on social media can see he’s an avid hunter, with him often posting his experiences on his Instagram account<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 He also wore a hat on the podcast that read, “I Kill Ducks.”<\/p>\n

However, a post with him in a friend’s backyard firing a pistol got him in serious trouble during his playing days after the team immediately caught wind of it.<\/p>\n

“My buddy Jared got a new pistol,” said Ridley. “In his backyard, we’re sitting in his backyard, he has some targets set up where he sights in his rifle, sights in his pistols, whatever it is.”<\/p>\n

Edelman then asked if what they were doing was legal.<\/p>\n

“100% legal,” replied Ridley.\u00a0 “We’re out of the city limits. Mississippi, as long as you’re out of the city limits, you can blaze freaking Yosemite Sam. It’s like whatever you want to do.”<\/p>\n

“But we have the target set up. Of course, Moose is filming and catching this because me and my partner are sitting there side by side, earmuffs on, shooting the targets. I put a Rick Ross song, because I’ve been playing with the social media way too long, long enough to get me in trouble. But I put a Rick Ross song behind [the post], Black Coffins. The name of the song is 100 Black Coffins, and it’s by Rick Ross, and I put it in black and white. It was in this slow mode, and you just see me and my buddy up here shooting these targets, and I literally just unload it. It probably missed the target every time. But I caught the video, and I posted it on my social media.\u00a0 No big deal.”<\/p>\n

“Until Berj [Najerian] rings my damn phone, and I’m like, ‘This has never happened before, and why is he calling me?'”<\/p>\n

Little did he know, the team was monitoring players’ social media accounts.\u00a0 That prompted the call by Nejarian, who was calling on behalf of Belichick.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(PHOTO: David Butler II-Imagn Images)<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“‘Bill’s Secretary’ is what was in my phone,” said Ridley when Edelman asked if he could tell who it was.\u00a0 “It’s still in there right now. When I saw this name come across my phone, my heart just hit my stomach and I’m like, ‘This ain’t good.'”<\/p>\n

Ridley said it took just 30 minutes before the Patriots saw his post.<\/p>\n

“Thirty minutes. It was like, no time,” said Ridley.\u00a0 “The Patriots got like the FBI, bro. They don’t miss nothing. He called me and I answered the phone like, ‘Hello. He said, Rid? I said, ‘What’s up, Berj? He says, ‘Coach wants to speak with you.’ All right. So I sat on the phone. Bill gets on the phone, and I guess he hops on.”<\/p>\n

“Coach goes, Rid, just what the f**k are you doing?’ And I’m like, ‘What you mean, Coach?’ ‘The freaking post that you just put up there, really think about it, man. You’re unloading a freaking pistol on a video on your socials. I mean, we just had a guy arrested. Give me a f**king break, Rid.’ I said, ‘Damn, Coach, I wasn’t even thinking about it that way. I’m just back home chilling with the boys, shooting targets.'”<\/p>\n

Given what was going on with former Patriots player Aaron Hernandez at the time (he was arrested in 2013), which must have been around when this took place, Belichick didn’t care. His next reply then left Ridley questioning his future with the team.<\/p>\n

“‘Better yet, just don’t even bring your ass back up here,'” said Ridley of Belichick.\u00a0 “I was like, whoa, did I just get cut?”<\/p>\n

“How does this go down? I looked at my boy and I’m like, I don’t know if I got fired or not. What’s going on?”<\/p>\n

“When he told me, ‘Just don’t even bring your ass back up here.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, wow.’ So automatically, I went into, ‘Coach, I have the utmost respect for you. I did not know that I had messed up that bad.’ I said, ‘There’s targets in the background. We weren’t doing anything wrong.’ I said, ‘You’re comparing me to a murderer because I’m shooting targets in the backyard.’ I said, ‘But either way, I hear you. I will not be back there. And I’m going to let you know this. My faith is in God and upstairs.’ I said, ‘This is not the end of my career if I am cut.'”<\/p>\n

“I hung up the phone. It was probably a dumb move to do that.”<\/p>\n

‘Go Straight Upstairs and See Robert’<\/strong><\/h3>\n

After hanging up on Belichick, Ridley apparently got a call back from his coach 30 minutes later.<\/p>\n

“Within, I would say, 30 to an hour, I got another phone call and it was Bill. He said, ‘You know what? Better yet, when you come here, do not even stop in my office.’ He said, ‘You go straight upstairs and see Robert.’\u00a0 I’m like, ‘Robert, Robert, Mr. Kraft?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, bro.’ I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t know how this goes because Bill, whether you all know it or not, Bill moves the needle on everything around there. He’s making all the calls. So, for him to push me to the big dog, I’m like, ‘Bro, I’ll just stay in Mississippi.'”<\/p>\n

Ridley said that when he finally sat down with owner Robert Kraft, the conversation was much different, although the overall message was still the same.<\/p>\n

“He met me at the door, and I remember that slow motion walk in there,” said Ridley. “I don’t know if it’s going to be my last walk in Patriots Stadium, is this going to be a little talk? Am I going to be suspended? But I’m just walking in there and the whole time my back’s to him, I’m like, I don’t even know what I’m going to say. I’m just coming in. I don’t even know where to sit. He walks around his desk. He’s like, ‘Come on in. Take a seat.’ Super nice. I just sit down. I’m like, ‘How are you, Mr. Kraft?’ He was like, ‘I’m okay. I’m okay. How are you?’ I’m like, ‘In trouble. Obviously, I’ve messed up.’ He was like, ‘Look.’ He looked at me and he looked over at the door and he got up again to make sure the door was closed. I’m like, ‘Oh, s**t. I’m just literally sliding down on my seat. I’m like, ‘Bro, you blew it. You straight up blew it.’ He says, ‘Look, Steven, we love you here.’ He said, ‘You’re a great Patriot.’ He says, ‘You’re a good kid.'”<\/p>\n

“He was like, ‘Sometimes Bill can be a little bit harsh.’ My heart just, I was like, ‘Hell, yeah. Bill can be a little bit harsh.’ I’m like, Yeah. I’m not saying too much, but in my mind, I’m like, Yeah, he can be, but I’m not trying to piss him off or step on their toes.”<\/p>\n

Kraft Tells Ridley a Story<\/strong><\/h3>\n

“He’s like, ‘Let me tell you a little story.’ Story time. Cool. At least I’m not,\u00a0 ‘Pack up your s**t and get out of here.’ At least I’m holding on.”<\/p>\n

“‘I’m going to tell you about a time that … my family was born and raised in the Northeast, but I had a daughter,’ I can’t remember exactly what he said because I was scared out of my mind. ‘I had a daughter that was dating a guy or either married a guy from the South.’ He said, which was the wildest thing to me. He’s just talking so slow. I’m like, get to the point. Am I cut? Am I fired? Am I saved?”<\/p>\n

“‘Well, I had this daughter, and I went to visit her significant other’s family, and we went to church together. After church, everybody left church and came back to the house and they cook food and they’re hanging out, just like country folks do.’\u00a0 That’s what we do. Every Sunday, it’s like, you’re in the Lord’s house first, you’re going to eat some good grub, and you’re going to spend time with the family. This was his first time, I guess, to Texas. He was saying how he got there, they went to church, they ate food, and he said, ‘The next thing I know,’ he says, ‘I look up and I see the little kids on the back porch.’ He says, ‘Steven, they all have guns. It blew my mind to see these little kids actually doing what they were doing. Comfortable with firearms. They weren’t hurting anybody.'”<\/p>\n

“But he was like, ‘It’s just the difference of the culture.’ I’m like, ‘Preach, Mr. Kraft. Yes.’ He was like, ‘So Bill might not necessarily understand what’s going on and where you’re from, but you have to be aware of the time and the pressure that the team is under.’ He’s like, ‘I think that’s what Bill was trying to tell you.’ And I said, ‘Maybe so. I hope so.’ I’m not fired yet? He said, ‘Well, here’s what I’m going to tell you. You make sure when you go back down there, you go see Coach because he told you to come straight and see me, right?’\u00a0 I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I said, ‘That’s exactly what I did.’ He says, ‘You make sure you go right back to Coach and tell him that I got on you hard.’ I was like, ‘What? I got a pass? I’m good?’ He’s like, ‘Tell him I got on you hard.’ He said, ‘This is between us.'”<\/p>\n

Ridley then went and talked to Belichick and apologized for the mistake, but he said that while he remained with the team, he didn’t exactly get off without a penalty.<\/p>\n

“Conduct detrimental,” said Ridley.\u00a0 “Big fine. You know what I mean? I think it was probably what, $16k, $17k, something like that.”<\/p>\n

“But to this day, Bill doesn’t know the words that we exchanged in that office. But Mr. Kraft really just put it in perspective for me to help me realize without the F-bombs, without telling me never to come back to Foxborough. It was just … to have that dynamic that I found some middle ground between the two, and I was somewhat safe. I am forever thankful for Mr. Kraft and the organization because he’s the man for that, truly.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former New England Patriots running back Stevan Ridley apparently got off on the wrong foot with the clubduring his rookie year after arriving to the facility above the playing weight Bill Belichick had in mind for him, and one mistake he made later in his career apparently nearly saw him let go from the 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