With Tom Brady’s statue in Enel Plaza outside of Gillette Stadium being unveiled on Friday ahead of the Patriots’ preseason opener, it was only a matter of time before fans and media moved on from giving out their letter grades for Bronze Brady and started asking the obvious question:
When will Bill Belichick be getting his statue?
We all know how things ended here in New England between the six-time Super Bowl champion and the Kraft family (and if you’re unaware, just read any review of Apple TV+’s “The Dynasty”). To say the relationship between the parties is frosty would be an understatement.
They may have “mutually agreed to part ways,” but their actions since the break-up say otherwise.
But if Brady got a statue for his dominant two-decade run as the man under center for the Patriots, his running mate with the headset is equally deserving of such an honor.
Patriots legend Devin McCourty agrees with this sentiment.
“A big talking point here has been, is there going to be a Belichick [statue] that joins Brady?” WEEI’s Chris Curtis said to McCourty on Thursday morning. “Do you think there will? And do you think it'll be right next to Tom? And when can we get the Belichick one?”
“Man, I sure hope so,” said McCourty. “I mean, again - I'm obviously biased. I think from playing there, and I think playing on defense, and some of the thought processes that went into some game plans, and even overall the team success that the Patriots had, you can't take away.
“And I know people are going to be like ‘post-Tom this, and pre-Tom [that].’ But what we were able to accomplish in my time there, and what those guys did before me, and obviously the time I get to spend with Rodney Harrison now [on Sunday Night Football], and him talking about his time with Bill and the consistency, or the same phrases and different things that we heard from a game plan standpoint, I think it would be ridiculous that you wouldn't put a statue up of him when that [time] comes.
"I don't know [when] - you kind of lean on ‘time heals’ whatever happened towards the end of everything between the Krafts and Coach Belichick. But I just think it makes a lot of sense for him to have a statue. Whether it's next to Tom, whether it's on another side of the stadium, whatever. I think that organization is built on, football wise, what those two men gave to the team year after year. And we're talking about two decades of excellence that, to me, deserves a statue.”
Belichick opens his first season as head football coach at North Carolina on Labor Day, as his Tar Heels take on TCU in a standalone showcase game on ESPN at 8:00 p.m. ET.
Regardless of how the 73-year-old fares during his first foray into the college game, his resume in New England remains unassailable.
We have Bronze Brady. Give us Bronze Bill.