A New England Patriots legend took offense to Bill Belichick saying that the previous 25 years is the reason why fans of the team should be optimistic heading into the 2023 season.
Tedy Brushchi, who played linebacker for the Patriots for 13 seasons before becoming an NFL analyst on ESPN, was surprised by his former coach’s comment, saying that he usually doesn’t point at the past when speaking to players on the team.
“That’s my guy who had a little slip right there,” Bruschi said on ESPN’s “Get Up.” “I don’t know how many times I’ve been in meetings with Coach Belichick and the very first meeting is, ‘I don’t care about anything in the past.’ We win Super Bowls, ‘last year doesn’t matter.’ Pro Bowls don’t matter, All-Pros don’t matter. ‘Everything you’ve done last year doesn’t matter, fellas. It’s about who we are going forward.’”
Bruschi continued to say that he thought Belichick’s comments were out of character for him, and thinks that someone should be holding him accountable in some form.
“This is what the good teams do. Players hold coaches accountable also when they get off-message,” Bruschi said. “Right now, Coach Belichick is off-message. That is something that his players shouldn’t hear — that he is basing some optimism to fans on ‘what I’ve done the last 25 years.’ I don’t know if I’ve ever heard Bill mention something like that in terms of his whole body of work. It was surprising to me.”
“I don’t know what’s going on in that locker room now, but players can hold coaches accountable. I’ve done it with Bill before when he said things postgame or during the week that I did not like and we had discussions in captains meetings or after games or whatever. I’m not in that locker room anymore. I’m just surprised because that’s not the Bill Belichick that I know.”
It’s certainly tough to argue that no coach has had a better stretch than Belichick since he joined the Patriots in 2000. He’s won six Super Bowls and played in three more. He’s made it to the playoffs in 19 of his 23 seasons with the team.
But things haven’t gone too well following Tom Brady’s departure in 2020. The Patriots have gone 25-25 in the regular season since then, making the playoffs once and finishing with a losing record in the two other seasons.
That might be a strong reason why Bruschi feels Belichick needs to be called out after an 8-9 season.
It’s also the second time in two days that Bruschi has called out Belichick. On Monday, Bruschi said that he thinks Belichick miscalculated his players when he gave Matt Patricia and Joe Judge major coaching roles on the offensive staff.
“I think that the biggest mistake that Bill made was this: He overestimated his players' ability to handle that type of change. That’s what I think the problem was,” Bruschi said Monday on ESPN's “Get Up.”
“Because when they’re looking around and they don’t know who the offensive coordinator is, they see Judge, they see Patricia, they see confusion. They didn’t have anybody in there to say, ‘Hey, fellas, stop. This is the way it’s going to be. Let’s all get on the same page,' from a player perspective. That’s what they didn’t have and Bill overestimated his players to do that.”