A cold war is developing between the Patriots and Bill Belichick, which isn’t exactly surprising given the parties involved.
Scenes of the Patriots without Belichick roaming the sidelines and the coach without the Flying Elvis on his chest are taking some getting used to. As the 2024 season — the first Patriots season without Belichick at the helm since 1999 — unfolds, both sides are becoming increasingly comfortable lobbing verbal grenades at each other.
After Belichick’s “plan” critique, Patriots coach Jerod Mayo fired the most recent shot earlier this week with a thinly veiled barb at Belichick’s roster-building failures that left the cupboards bare as Mayo took over.
On Tuesday, Belichick took his next punch, using an opportunity to weigh in on Patriots quarterback Drake Maye to point out a major defensive deficiency for New England.
On their latest episode of “Coach Podcast,” former Patriots executive Michael Lombardi teed up Belichick for an opportunity to weigh in on Maye’s debut Sunday against Houston. Before even allowing Belichick to give his take, Lombardi steered the conversation in the direction of the New England defense.
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“But all the talk about the quarterback, you gave up 41 points. Everyone thinks the quarterback is the major wand,” Lombardi said, pointing to how the Raiders made a change at quarterback before getting torched by Pittsburgh.
That was the alley to Belichick’s oop.
“Yeah, well quarterbacks don’t play defense. Some people lose sight of that,” the coach quipped, and that pretty much was that.
Pretty rich coming from someone who had a .743 winning percentage in his career with Tom Brady at quarterback (and .466 without him). We don’t need to relitigate that one right now, though.
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The entire back-and-forth misses the point. Comparing Maye’s situation to the Raiders isn’t especially analogous; Las Vegas is trying to decide between Aidan O’Connell and Gardner Minshew. Maye, meanwhile, was the No. 3 pick making his first career start for the Patriots. Apples, oranges, etc.
It would be legitimately interesting to get Belichick’s earnest reaction to what he saw from Maye, though. Given Belichick’s record against rookie quarterbacks as a head coach, no one is better at breaking down young QBs than the future Hall of Famer. Belichick also has been lukewarm on Maye throughout the spring and into the summer, praising his talent but questioning his decision-making ability.
“You like his size, you like his arm, (but) I think his inexperience really showed up in the preseason as it did a little bit at North Carolina,” Belichick said on the same show in September. “I think he needs a lot of seasoning in terms of reading coverages, overall throwing mechanics and consistency. Is he a big, fast athlete? Yeah, but I think it’s going to take more than that to play quarterback in the National Football League.”
All things considered, Maye handled himself quite nicely in his debut. There’s plenty for Patriots fans to dream on. It would have been nice to hear Belichick’s input on that and whether he saw actual progress from the rookie. Alas.
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