LISTEN: Does Kraft regret picking Belichick over Brady? Zolak and Bertrand discuss
Zo and Beetle debated whether Patriots owner Robert Kraft regrets keeping Bill Belichick over Tom Brady during Thursday’s Zolak and Bertrand show.
Beetle: “The question is this: Does Robert Kraft today on July 21 of 2022, days from the opening of Training Camp season number three without Tom Brady, does he regret his decision?
“No I don’t think he regrets his decision because I think he is a good businessman,” Zo said. “He hires good people around him and the trust at that time with a quarterback that was going to be 42 years of age. Yeah He loves the guy, there’s no doubt about that. And that guy has put more money in in the Patriot pockets and expanded that brand more so than any other player in the history of the organization. Here’s the tough thing too, because you you had Josh McDaniels here, and Josh is now the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.
“So you kind of had an, almost a succession plan ready to go, It’s not like, okay, you got rid of Brady. You didn’t really have an answer because you didn’t have anything ready to go when Brady left. Say, Belichick would have got frustrated and walked. Yeah, Josh probably would have plugged right in. So I think that transition would have been a little bit smoother. But right now you don’t really have a guy if Bill bounces. But I think at the time, you know, I love Brady.
“I knew they were going to be in trouble when he left. You had to trust the guy to run a football team more so than just a single player. It’s easy to sit back and look at it now and see what Tom has done in Tampa, but you didn’t know what he was going to do down there.”
“I wont [feel better],” Beetle added later on. “But maybe last year, with all the investment they made in that team a year ago, the potential for there to have been a seventh Super Bowl in New England versus having Tom Brady win one in Tampa Bay. I’ll let Mac Jones play his whole career and try and win a Super Bowl and then you can have the [conversation].
“I don’t look at Mac Jones as a guy who’s an upper echelon quarterback in this league. Yeah, I think he’s going to have a really tough time cracking the top five in the time that he’s. I think he’s good. I’m glad the Patriots have a representative starter and they don’t have some bum playing quarterback.
“They’ve got a legit quarterback, but I don’t think he’s top five, top seven. I think he’s going have a hard time getting there in this league and there’s going to continue to be more quarterbacks that come up through the ranks and come into this league that might keep him out of that area. So I don’t look at him as ever becoming one of the elite quarterbacks in the game. Brady still playing at a high level and it’s three years later.
“But again it’s not about Mac Jones, it’s about Bill. Has he started to set them up for long term, sustained success over the next five, six, seven, however many more years you want to put on the 5 to 10 year plan? Do they look like a team that’s primed and is set up for the next decade because they chose Bill?”
If you want to hear more of the conversation, tune into the second hour of Zolak & Bertrand to hear the full discussion. It can be found here: Follow @ZoandBertrand on Twitter and @zoandbertrand on Instagram to keep up with the show!
