Bill Belichick has been unusually open about the Patriots’ financial situation recently, telling Ordway, Merloni and Fauria last week that the Patriots “didn’t have any money” this offseason and that they had “sold out and won three Super Bowls” in recent years, resulting in them having “less to work with” now.
Those comments would seemingly suggest that Belichick’s expectations for this season would have been lower than usual, but it doesn’t appear the Patriots coach is willing to acknowledge that.
Appearing on The Greg Hill Show Monday, Steve Levy, who will be on play-by-play for ESPN’s Patriots-Jets Monday Night Football broadcast, shared an interesting tidbit from his production meeting with Belichick this week.
“We talked to him this week,” Levy said. “I said, ‘Bill, you just came out, you laid it out to us, and that makes a lot of sense. The opt-outs, the lack of salary cap space, playing inexperienced players. But saying that, then that means you must have known this would be what is a down year for the Patriots, right? That there should be lowered expectations?’
“And he wouldn’t give me that. He wouldn’t give me that crumb. He said, ‘Steve, the expectations are always the same. Every season’s different. Every day’s different. We’re going to try to do better every week, get better.’ All those kinds of things we usually hear from Bill.”
Levy added that his own take is that Belichick’s explanation of why the Patriots aren’t as deep or as experienced as in the past doesn’t quite mesh with the assertion that expectations shouldn’t change.
“Those two things can’t go together,” Levy said. “You can’t tell me you know you’re going to have all these problems, and then tell me the expectations are going to be exactly the same as they are in all these championship years.”
