Bill Belichick didn't rule out coaching the New England Patriots until he's 80 in a recent interview. However, there's increasingly less certainty that the head coach/de-facto general manager will get to remain in his current role as long as he desires.
Belichick, 70, and the Patriots lost 20-7 in Week 1 to the Miami Dolphins, and the game probably wasn't as close as the score indicated. With long-time defensive coordinator Matt Patricia now calling offensive plays, New England managed to produce just 271 yards of offense in season opener.
With the third year of the post-Tom Brady Era off to an ominous start, Colin Cowherd blasted the performance that the Patriots turned in against the Dolphins, and suggested he believes Belichick has lost touch.
"We want to give Belichick all this credit for being a genius, he has turned into Gregg Poppovich," Cowherd said. "He has so bought into his culture and belief system, that the game is now quickly pivoting away from what Bill is capable of doing ... which is communicating on a regular basis with a quarterback ... having an offensive sensibility ... the ability to draft wide receiver talent.
"I watched the Patriot-Dolphin game on one of my TVs -- it was painful. They had a desperation ball up the sideline late that was completed, but this idea that 'a coach is a coach' is absolutely, utterly ridiculous. You believe that you can go into games against Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, Andy Reid and put a defensive coordinator calling the plays, and 'a coach is a coach.' That is so arrogant, and that's the kind of arrogance that you get when somebody has been successful and is enriched financially. ... At some point you have to be flexible.
"They are painful. That is as bad as any offense in the NFL. They are slow ... they are predictable ... they looked at times disorganized ... the offensive line is not good. So, again, we're not experts. I couldn't coach a football team. But I can see inefficiency. I can see bad. The Patriots are exactly what everybody in the media predicted."
Cowherd would go on to note how even with the immense talent that Josh Allen had when he entered the NFL, he still needed years worth of coaching from Brian Daboll -- the former offensive coordinator in Buffalo, now the head coach of the New York Giants -- to reach the elite level he's playing at now. And for as impressive as Jones was in his rookie season, you're not going to find a person in the NFL that thinks he's even close to Allen in terms of physical gifts.
Since Tom Brady was allowed to leave following the 2019 season, the Patriots are just 18-17. With Patricia calling plays and the roster thin on skill-position talent, you don't get the sense that things are headed in a great direction. With that, Cowherd says he wouldn't be shocked if this is the final year that Belichick serves as the top football voice for the Patriots.
"I'll say it again. It's one thing to struggle. It's another to be bad. It's another to be boring. The Patriots are a bad watch, and Robert Kraft is a business man. I do not think it's crazy that if the Patriots go 6-11 or 7-10, that Kraft goes into his office at the end of the year, makes him a consultant ... Bill moves down to Jupiter, Florida with his girlfriend ... goes and golfs and hangs out like Jimmy Johnson on a boat ... maybe does some television.
"But they're not just bad. They're slow. They are unwatchable. And frankly, as I watched that game, it was embarrassing."
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