Bill Belichick says he had “shared vision” with Patriots, until “the last four years”

The decision of the Patriots to create a succession plan, while smart on paper, fell flat in practice.

Bill Belichick didn’t seem to like the idea that the next coach already had a deal in place. As former Patriots defensive back Devin McCourty said on Tuesday’s PFT Live, Belichick and his replacement, Jerod Mayo, barely spoke during the 2023 season.

Now that Mayo has been fired after one season, Belichick addressed the move in the latest episode of the Let’s Go! podcast.

It started with host Jim Gray simply (and smartly) generally and broadly asking Belichick for his thoughts on owner Robert Kraft’s decision to pull the plug on the succession plan after one very unsuccessful season.

“You know, that’s his choice,” Belichick said. “People that own the team have the choice to do whatever they wanna do. The other people that were in place. . . it’s also the rest of the organization, it’s not just the head coach. So, you know, {executive V.P. of football business and senior adviser to head coach] Robyn Glaser, [Kraft Group president] Jonathan Kraft, whoever the other people are that are involved in those decisions and the structure of the organization. But you need that shared vision between ownership and coaching and scouting. And that’s when you can be successful. . . . .

“I had that up until about the last four years in New England. And when you have that shared vision and everybody pulling in the same direction, you have a chance and you can get a lot done. And even if you don’t win at all, you’re still really competitive. . . . But when you’re going in different directions, then that makes it really hard to keep up with everybody else. I think you look at the organizations and you can kind of see the ones that are and the ones that aren’t. But look, it’s no surprise. There’s so many coaches now that are being released after a year, year and a half, or two years in place, and you just don’t see the Tom Landry situations anymore. That’s just not like that in the NFL or honestly in the other professional sports. And I think when you don’t have any continuity, it’s really hard to build.”

The Steelers have continuity. Three coaches since 1969. Most teams have installed a revolving door to the head coach’s office.

The most interesting part of Belichick’s comments are these four words: “The last four years.”

Those were the four post-Brady years. The years in which the roster largely disintegrated and the team struggled.

It’s Belichick’s way of saying it wasn’t his fault. Which is no surprise. Humans aren’t wired to take blame for their failings, whenever and wherever the blame can be shifted to others.

That said, he might have been responsible for the blurring of the shared vision. After all, he’s the one that decided to make a defensive specialist the de facto offensive coordinator in 2022. It was a disaster, and it went a long way toward setting the stage for the implementation of the succession plan after 2023.

Humans also aren’t wired to embrace the feeling that they’re being pushed out before they’re ready to go. That’s where things might have gone sideways for Belichick and Kraft.

Instead of embracing the risk that someone else might hire Mayo and worrying about replacing Belichick whenever the time came to do so, Kraft tried to cram a camel through the eye of the needle — and the camel did what camels (and every other creature) do when their innards get squished.