Belichick Still Taking Shots At Jerod Mayo

By Steve Atkinson 

If Bill Belichick were still the coach and they drafted Drake Maye, they might have a few more wins. However, Belichick tends to avoid drafting quarterbacks, so he probably wouldn’t have selected Maye and would have traded down instead. It’s also likely he wouldn’t have drafted offensive players throughout the entire draft, and he probably would have put Matt Patricia on the coaching staff. Josh McDaniels would have been the offensive coordinator, which could have worked well, as it did for Mac Jones in 2021. However, I don’t trust Belichick with a young quarterback; we’ve already been through that. While they’d likely have more wins with him, in the long term, he’s not the solution.

Belichick Loves Taking Jabs At The Patriots

The defense would be stronger because he would be calling the shots. He knows how to maximize the talent of defensive players, but he has a tendency to undermine his coaching staff while his son calls the plays. This was evident when Jerod Mayo never called plays because Steve Belichick is Bill’s son, but now Mayo is the head coach. Similarly, DeMarcus Covington didn’t call plays before, but now he is in charge of the defense. It’s partly Belichick’s fault that the team is 3-10; if he hadn’t undermined his staff, they might have been better prepared.

As Belichick said in an interview with Jim Gray, “Yeah, [the Patriots] just haven’t done enough to win very many games on any level. They’ve had trouble on defense. They are one of the last-ranked teams on offense, if not at the very bottom. They’ve missed some key field goals and had issues with kicking plays as well. So I’d say all three areas of the game just haven’t been good enough to win.”

He continued, “And they still have a couple of games left against Buffalo, right? They have a bye week this week, so maybe they can work a few things out, but it’s just been a pretty inconsistent year. They haven’t been able to do enough to win when needed.”

The staff wasn’t prepared enough, which is why we are seeing poor results on the field. The Krafts are giving them a trial run, and I’ll keep emphasizing this point: the previous coach didn’t properly prepare these guys and left the play-calling to his son and his friends.

Belichick Would go on to say how he feels about the players

No, there are a lot of people there that, you know, [are] very close to,” Belichick replied. “A lot of them that I brought there, especially defensively. Almost all those players are re-signed and most all the offensive skill players, too. So it’s hard to see them going through that type of a season.

“There’s nothing I can do about it, I mean, just sit back and watch it,” he added. “But, of course, yeah, I feel bad for a lot of those guys, especially the defensive players. I know those guys work hard. They’re tough and they care and they put a lot into it. But it’s the National Football League. It’s very competitive. You’ve got to find a way to stand up to the competition and that’s a challenge for every team.”

It’s the same thing every week with this team. They can’t get out of their own way due to the lack of experience on the coaching staff. Belichick doesn’t say that though he just talks about how it would be different if he was still there. Yeah, they’d have a few more wins and the defense would be better. But, long term I don’t trust him with a rookie quarterback. Really they should’ve hired an offensive coach instead of Mayo but the Krafts already promised him the job. Hopefully, it doesn’t backfire but it’s too early to make that call. They have another year.