By BRUCE LOWITT
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft admitted Wednesday he regretted allowing Bill Belichick to leave the team after the 2023 NFL season and said he fired head coach Jerod Mayo as a first step to getting Belichick back. He also said he should have fired de facto general manager Eliot Wolf as well “for saddling (quarterback) Drake Maye with such a shitty supporting cast.”
Belichick, a guaranteed Hall of Famer who took the Patriots to nine Super Bowls, winning six, in 24 seasons, spent the 2024 season as an NFL analyst on television, boring the shit out of his audience while simultaneously making Peyton and Eli Manning sound funnier than they are.
Last month he signed a five-year, $50-million contract to coach the University of North Carolina Tar Heels and announced his first move would be to “change those pussy powder-blue uniforms. And argyle? Give me a fucking break! No wonder the rest of the Atlantic Coast Conference beats the snot out of these guys every year.”
Belichick declined to discuss Kraft’s comments, saying he was too busy supervising the packing of his office at Kenan Stadium and trying to get his home in Hingham, Massachusetts, delisted from Airbnb, but he asked, “Anyone need Tar Heel mugs or sweatshirts or bobbleheads or any of this other shit?”
Kraft, with a net worth of $11-billion, insisted there would be no difficulty convincing UNC Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham to release Belichick from his contract. “For openers, I’m doubling Bubba’s salary to $2.5-million a year. Also, I’m buying Kenan Stadium. And I’m buying the team as well. No more interference from asshole boosters.“
Cunningham also declined to discuss Belichick’s future, saying he was “meeting with Steve Belichick, who was supposed to be our defensive coordinator. He wanted to talk to me about redecorating his dad’s office.”
Kraft said he was wavering Sunday whether to bring Mayo back for a second season until the Patriots defeated playoff-bound Buffalo 23-16, finishing the season with a 4-13 record “and screwing us out of the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft. I mean, holy fuck! So what if the Bills benched their starters. He should’ve benched ours – and himself, too, and let Wolf coach the team, let him see what a load of crap he assembled.”
Instead, the Patriots will select fourth. “We could’ve demanded a king’s ransom from whoever was desperate for a quarterback,” Kraft said. “Now we’re going to wind up picking an offensive lineman to protect Maye’s ass. Or maybe someone on defense, where we also sucked this year. Or maybe, I don’t know, whoever Bill wants.”
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