The tension between former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and chairman and CEO Robert Kraft started long before the 2023 season, a disappointing 4-13 campaign that ended without a trip to the playoffs for the second consecutive year.
Their relationship’s fracture had different layers, insults and lost respect that expedited the decline of New England’s dynasty, with Tom Brady’s departure in 2019 and Belichick’s mutual parting of ways serving as two of the most critical points on the timeline.
Kraft would “put down Belichick at every opportunity,” an anonymous source told ESPN in a feature on the decline of the Patriots’ dynasty.
But Belichick’s relationship with Patriots president and Kraft’s son, Jonathan, also worsened as the end of his tenure neared, and Belichick told some that the pair had “eroded” the culture that took decades to establish, according to ESPN.
In 2022, though, Jonathan allegedly said that “that guy’s got to go” and “he’s done” in reference to Belichick, while losses to the Saints and Cowboys this season resulted in Jonathan “hammering Belichick behind the scenes about personnel decisions,” according to ESPN.
“He’s been brutal,” Belichick said to a friend about Jonathan, the outlet reported.
Even when Brady still played for the Patriots, signs of tension — and perhaps irreversible tension — had started to surface.
What we know about the split between the Patriots and Bill Belichick
The Patriots and Bill Belichick will reportedly part ways on Thursday after 24 years and six Super Bowl wins.
Rumors had swirled around Belichick’s future all season as the Patriots finished with a 4-13 record and missed the playoffs for the third time in four seasons. Belichick met with Patriots owner Robert Kraft over the past several days before reaching the mutual decision.
Belichick notched a 266-121 overall record with the Patriots and has another 31 playoff victories.
The 71-year-old has no plans to retire, and needs just 15 more wins to match Don Shula’s all-time wins record — regular season and playoffs — by a head coach in NFL history.
The Falcons, who fired Arthur Smith after the season, are the most likely suitor for Belichick, according to ESPN.
Patriots inside linebackers coach Jerod Mayo is the favorite to replace Belichick with Mike Vrabel, who was fired by the Titans, also a possibility. Others with prior ties to the Patriots, including Brian Flores and Josh McDaniels, could be in the mix as well.
But Belichick remained with the organization past the end of Brady’s run with the Patriots, though they managed just a 29-38 record in four years without the legendary quarterback, making the playoffs just once.
Belichick and Kraft agreed to part ways earlier this week, with New England promoting linebackers coach Jerod Mayo — essentially the successor to Belichick all along — to head coach.
“For me, this is a day of gratitude and celebration,” Belichick said Thursday. “We had a vision of building a winner, building a championship football team here. And it’s exceeded my wildest dreams and expectations — the amount of success we were able to achieve together through a lot of hard work and the contributions of so many people.”
Follow the Post’s coverage on Bill Belichick’s Patriots exit
ESPN reported that while Kraft and the rest of the Patriots’ ownership had complained about not having a winning team in 2023, or trying to claim that the game “had passed Belichick by,” players didn’t stop supporting Belichick and managed to win December games against two teams contending for playoff berths.
“The Krafts should be ashamed of themselves,” a New England assistant coach reportedly told someone, according to ESPN.
At its peak, the Patriots — with Brady as their signal-caller, Belichick as their coach and football operations wizard, and Kraft as their owner — operated so efficiently that their trips to the Super Bowl and their six titles seemed normal.
After Brady left and won his seventh with the Buccaneers in February 2021, ESPN reported that Kraft and Belichick both sent texts congratulating their former player, but the internal thoughts of the former were entirely different.
“Bill had told me he couldn’t play anymore,” Kraft reportedly said following the 2020 Super Bowl, “and then he goes out and wins the f–king Super Bowl.”