Always, for everyone, Judgment Day looms. In this instance, the case for firing Bill Belichick is as stacked as it has ever been.
As such, make no mistake about the biggest story in Boston sports as we open 2024 on this Tuesday, Jan. 2: the great Bill Belichick – and we ae being quite literal there – is entering perhaps (likely?) his final game as the head coach of the New England Patriots. The Patriots are 4-12 and in contention for the No. 2 overall pick in next year’s annual draft. They have not won a playoff game since Super Bowl LIII almost five years ago. They have dipped to a level of failure the region has not seen from its football team since days that immediately preceded the arrival of Belichick’s mentor, the estimable Bill Parcells.
So where is this going? Nowhere good, it seems, no matter how you feel about the complicated coach of the Patriots. During his time in New England, Belichick has been, at once, arrogant, brilliant, stubborn, caustic, childish, a genius and a curmudgeon, one of the NFL’s greatest ambassadors and perhaps his own worst enemy. He has also been nothing if not human, a quality that ultimately leaves him i the same place as everyone else in the final analysis.
Vulnerable.
What Patriots owner Robert Kraft elects to do with Belichick in the next week is still open to debate in the eyes of many, if for no other reason than the fact that Belichick’s accomplishments here should never be minimized. Was Tom Brady more important? Almost certainly. Red Auerbach himself said the same about Bill Russell. But someone still has to put out the balls and blow the whistle, and Belichick – like Auerbach – stands as arguably the greatest coach in the history of his sport.
And yet, entering Sunday’s 2023 season finale against the coach’s hated New York Jets in Foxboro, the case against Belichick returning – and for his firing – seems as open and shut as it has ever been. If Belichick and the Patriots break up soon – however the formal phrasing, the reasons will be clear.