'The Staff Dynamic is Completely F*cked': Days Before Belichick's Fate Will Be Decided, Anonymous Patriots Sources are Mercilessly Stabbing Him in the Back

CJ GUNTHER. Shutterstock Images.

As hard as this is to wrap your brain around, in as little as four days, we may come to the end of the journey that sort of began exactly 24 years ago today. That was the unforgettable moment Bill Belichick made the greatest career decision in world history by opting out of his new job as HC of NYJs. Announced with the greatest press conference ever:

Jets GM Steve Gutman talked about him afterwards like he belonged in a mental institution. But since he spent less than 24 hours in the job he quit and more than 24 years in the one he eventually accepted, we can safely say it worked out.

Such as it often is with seemingly crazy, but unquestionably brilliant and successful men, Belichick has made a lot of enemies. Both foreign and domestic. You can't live a high profile life of achievement without making yourself a massive target. And as others stand back and salute your accomplishments, there will always be others looking on with resentment, thinking your success should be theirs. And out of a toxic blend of resentment, envy and fear, if they sense you're vulnerable, they'll see it as their opportunity to strike. Even those who appeared to be closest to you. 

They did it to Caesar. They did it to countless British monarchs. They did it in the French Revolution. The Bolesheviks did it to the Tsar. The did to JFK. In a different way, they did it to Oppenheimer after he'd brought swift victory in WWII without any loss of American lives. They even did it to the One who saved my soul. So it comes as no surprise they'd try it on the one who saved my football team. 

And it sounds like that's precisely what's happening within the Patriots organization:

This is a long, thoroughly researched piece. So I'll boil it down to focus primarily on what the inside sources said. But overall, it speaks to some very obvious, pervasive dysfunction that's led to the 4-12 cataclysm we've been witnessing:

Source - To unpack [the] failure, the Herald interviewed more than a dozen team sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Patriots. Over months, sources described an offense undone by a quieter type of dysfunction, a broken quarterback and finger-pointing between the coaching staff and front office. …

“This was messed up from the beginning,” a locker-room source said. 

“Nothing like I expected,” another said. “Not at all.”

It reports that Belichick wanted to keep working with Matt Patricia as his offensive coordinator, but ownership pressured him to make changes. Which led to Bill O'Brien as OC, who brought Will Lawings with him to coach tight ends, and then Adrian Klemm as offensive line coach:

Klemm joined a coaching mash unit bound not by a system, philosophy or even experience with the coordinator. …

According to league sources, some assistants came to believe O’Brien wanted to clean house and build his own offensive staff upon arriving in January, but Belichick denied him. …To onlookers, a clear hierarchy developed with O’Brien and his assistants: there was Lawing and assistant quarterbacks coach Evan Rothstein, then everyone else.

“The staff dynamic is completely f—ed,” a team source said.

We then get a picture of O'Brien running more full squad meetings than there'd been under Patricia, which meant less work with positional groups. A sort of consolidation of power, with more things running through the OC. Which obviously didn't work out as anyone had planned:

O’Brien’s frustration with the wide receivers and offensive line coaches began bubbling as soon as the late spring. Both position groups feature underdeveloped high draft picks and rank among the league’s worst units. …

Members of the front office shared O’Brien’s frustration with the lack of development as the season wore on.

“It’s just a lot of bad s—,” another team source said. “Bad coaching.”

Klemm in particular was frustrated by the cards he'd been dealt on the O-line. Until, to quote Jules Winnfield, he became "a mushroom cloud-layin' muthafucker, muthafucker. The Guns of Navarone!"

Outside the front office, a few staffers privately pointed fingers back at decision-makers about the talent available. That is, save for Klemm, who confronted director of player personnel Matt Groh early in the season in a loud exchange that reverberated through the organization. Klemm, according to sources, didn’t feel heard, while some offensive veterans didn’t want to believe their eyes.  …

The team’s pass protection ranks fifth-worst by Pro Football Focus grades and last by ESPN’s pass-block win rate, both down from 2022.

“We didn’t invest in the offensive line until the fourth round, didn’t take a receiver until the sixth,” a third source said. “How do we spend the first three picks on defense when tackle was the biggest problem on the team last year?”

Then of course, not to be ignored was the chaos at the quarterback:

By the time Bailey Zappe made his first start in December, the internal consensus was he hadn’t beaten [Mac] Jones out so much as waited him out. … He was no more accurate than Jones. But, …. “We had no chance to win with Mac at quarterback,” a locker-room source said. …

That left Jones all alone in a quarterbacks room that sources familiar with the room paint as quiet and uncomfortable.

“There definitely isn’t healthy communication in there about trying to win football games,” a team source said.

But just to illustrate that it hasn't been all bad blood and the football equivalent of regicide, Belichick does still manage to astonish everyone with his mastery of the game:

“The guys still respond to him,” a tenured Patriots source said of Belichick. “And goddamn, we have so many squad meetings where he shows them what’s going to happen in the game, and it always f–ing happens. Even down to what we can’t do, and then we end up f—ing doing it.”

Which is encouraging to hear. The game hasn't passed Belichick by to any stretch. But it only mitigates things somewhat because quoted here are an awful lot of different anonymous sources at all different levels of the organization - front office, coaches, players -  pulling the knives out from under their tunics. 

And it's all going to have to be taken into account by Mr. Kraft in the days ahead. He has to decide whether to get rid of the malecontents or move on from the thing they're malcontented about. Either way, he can't stand pat. Because there's no other way to go from the bottom of the AFC East, next to the bottom of the league and the worst offense in the NFL with this level of palace intrigue going on in the building. 

As for the backstabbing ingrates who owe their livelihoods to Belichick but who nevertheless anonymously talk shit about him behind his back like cowards, I can only speak of them the way Marc Antony did in Julius Caesar. Which is to say, dripping with Shakespearean sarcasm:

The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men–

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man. …

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason.

I still hold out hope the same Bill Belichick who built this empire and brought glory and honor to it survives this character assassination plot and the ones betraying him pay. But that feels like a fool's hope more everyday. Hail, Belichick!