It’s a period of transition for the New England Patriots after calling it quits with Bill Belichick. Things haven’t been right for the former dynasty after Tom Brady left Gillette Stadium to win one more title with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
With their new head coach in Jerod Mayo, the Patriots are focusing their efforts on finding a new quarterback to lead them back to their winning ways.
However, it’s not a bad idea to look back into Belichick’s reign as New England coach and assess what went wrong during his final years at Foxborough. It would serve as a terrific guide for Mayo to properly instruct the team into their new era.
Players who played for the legendary coach were asked what they didn’t like about playing for Belichick, and they didn’t hold back regarding his regime.
New England Patriots players hated the disconnect between Bill Belichick and the team
According to Heavy’s James Dudko, many of the players on the Patriots roster were unhappy with how Belichick ran the team. While they understood that Belichick built a franchise on the Patriot Way, it was something that rubbed people the wrong way when they stopped winning.
The players gave Bill Belichick a shocking review:
It appears players shared what became a common belief during the 2023 season that Belichick’s approach was no longer suited to the modern NFL.
The nadir occurred when Belichick let former defensive coordinator Matt Patricia and ex-Special Teams coach Joe Judge call the offense in 2022. It wrecked quarterback Mac Jones, who had been a Pro Bowler as a rookie a year earlier.
Even some of Belichick’s former players grew tired of his conservative strategies on gameday. Ted Johnson, who played middle linebacker for Belichick when the Patriots won the 2002 Super Bowl, skewered his ex-coach for taking “the power away from the players” with play calling that was “so conservative,” during a defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 15, per NBCS Boston’s Patriots Coverage.
The New England Patriots haven’t been the same ever since Brady left town. They floundered with Cam Newton in 2020. While they enjoyed a bit of a resurgence under Mac Jones in 2021, they fell back to missing the playoffs in 2022 and 2023.
What should the Patriots do moving forward?
There are plenty of things Jerod Mayo can pick up from the final years of Bill Belichick’s reign in New England.
Becoming more transparent to his players should be at the top of his list. Belichick’s insistence on doing things his way was the ultimate reason that got him axed from the job. He should give some agency back to the players and allow them to feel involved in the process.
Flexibility will also be important for the New England Patriots’ new identity. Since they will find it difficult to attract top-name talent at the moment, they should not be ashamed to try new things that would help them win immediately.
It will be interesting to see how the Patriots will look like this season. The players will hope that it’ll be much better than what they experienced under Belichick.
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