Bill Belichick's North Carolina Tar Heels lost their season opener, 48-14, on Monday night.
Bill Belichick's North Carolina Tar Heels lost their season opener, 48-14, on Monday night.Chris Seward/Associated Press
The ice between Patriots owner Robert Kraft and former coach Bill Belichick appeared to thaw earlier this week when Kraft told WBZ that he intends to build a statue for Belichick when he retires from coaching.
But the relationship between the two is apparently frostier than ever. Multiple sources confirmed Thursday that Belichick’s University of North Carolina football program has banned Patriots scouts from its facility this season.
The unprecedented arrangement was first reported by independent NFL reporter John Middlekauff on his podcast. NFL scouts attend college practices and games to gather intel on players for the upcoming NFL Draft.
A UNC source confirmed to the Globe that the ban includes both practices and games and is justified based on how Kraft treated Belichick after firing him following the 2023 season. UNC lost its season opener, 48-14, on Monday night.
“Why would we let them in our home after how they have treated Belichick since he left?” the source said. “We will help our players to the fullest and we will help their scouts over the phone and sharing of film, but being treated fairly is a two-way street.”
The beef most likely stems from the 10-part Apple TV docuseries “The Dynasty” from early 2024, which glossed over many of the Patriots’ football accomplishments but went into great detail into Belichick’s failings and blamed him for Tom Brady’s departure and the Super Bowl loss to the Eagles. The docuseries was purported to be an independent project, but the copyright belongs to Kraft Dynasty LLC. The Globe reported that NFL Films was originally slated to be part of the project but dropped out because of the negative tone toward Belichick.
When speaking with the Globe two weeks ago at the UNC football facility, Belichick took a not-so-subtle shot at Kraft and his son, team president Jonathan Kraft, when asked about the differences between the NFL and college football.
“There’s no owner, there’s no owner’s son, there’s no cap, everything that goes with the marketing and everything else, which I’m all for that. But it’s way less of what it was at that level,” Belichick said. “It’s a much more cohesive, and I’d say unified, view of what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to do it.”
In July, Belichick snapped back at Kraft after Kraft said on a podcast that he took “a big risk” in hiring Belichick in 2000.
“As I told Robert multiple times through the years, I took a big risk by taking the New England Patriots head coaching job,” Belichick told ESPN. “I had been warned by multiple previous Patriots’ coaches, as well as other members of other NFL organizations and the media, that the New England job was going to come with many internal obstacles.”
Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com.