Could the power of pitiful losing actually transform a GOAT into a lame duck?
That’s the question that needs to be asked this Patriots’ bye week as New England skulks through a 2-8 season with seven games remaining on the schedule.
Suddenly the disorienting smoke surrounding Bill Belichick’s future as head coach and grand pigskin poohbah at Gillette Stadium has created a massive cloud over the future of the franchise in Foxborough.
It began with Pro Football Talk reporting that there were rumblings that Belichick could be traded to the Commanders after this season, a clicks-worthy talking point that just so happened to surface the week that Washington was in town to meet and beat the Patriots.
Then over this past weekend came an admittedly very loosely sourced report via The Athletic that Belichick and the Kraft-led New England franchise are on course for a “mutual parting of the ways at the end of the season.”
Speculation of Belichick’s departure and dynastic demise then reached a crescendo early this bye week as ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky, a noted weekly texting pal of Mac Jones, told the Pat McAfee podcast that he’s “heard more and more” this week that the future Hall of Fame coach will be doing his thang elsewhere in the NFL in 2024. “I have heard that that’s going to be the case,” Orlovsky said. “Who knows the likelihood of it, but I’ve heard that’s going to happen and I’ve heard the location is already determined as well.”
Whoa, not only are Belichick and the Patriots parting ways, but the path to such a divorce is already paved and mapped out with basically half a season left to play?
Even in a place where employees are urged to “Ignore the Noise” like robots, modern players see and hear everything. Including this growing mess of speculation surrounding Belichick’s future.
Belichick is not only gone after the season but already has his next gig lined up?
Talk about a bombshell.
Talk about something that’s not in the current best interests of the football team.
Talk about a maneuver that’s counter to the culture of the one game at a time mentality that Belichick supposedly has been beholden to for two-plus decades.
Talk about a major problem for the current Patriots who are already struggling to remain confident, focused and fully invested in their difficult jobs while they try to navigate what captain Matthew Slater called “uncharted waters” while having to fight back against “human nature.”
How, exactly, are the current lot of football pros in the land o’ Patriots supposed to continue to fight the good fight, to follow orders and chain of command if the man atop that chain delivering those orders already has one foot out the door?
Much of the New England roster falls into two categories at this point, guys who are headed toward free agency this spring and guys with one more season left on their contracts for the Patriots in 2024.
How could either group of professionals be fully invested and fully attentive to their boss given the now repetitive and more-believable-by-the-report speculation that Belichick and/or the Patriots have already begun work on next season with this one still very much in progress, even little progress has been had in terms of results?
The Patriots aren’t a good football team right now.
They don’t know who their quarterback will be post-bye in a battle with the Giants that has massive ramifications in terms of top draft picks come next April’s franchise-building selection frenzy.
And now they can’t be sure that their coach, their supposedly unquestioned leader and rock to lean on through the thick and thin over the years, is even focused on the task at hand?
What in some kind of Bill Parcells talking to the Jets world of Super Bowl XXXI world are we living in these days in New England?
How did we get to the point where even respected former players are fueling the speculation that Belichick’s days are numbered at One Patriot Place?
And how can current players take their aging boss seriously with all this smoke emanating from the idea that he’s already lining up his next gig?
Belichick might just be a lame duck leader with a credibility problem in the New England locker room these days. And that just might be the most incredible final step in this unbelievable undoing of the Patriots dynasty.
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