Bill Belichick doesn’t believe he’s wanted around the Patriots’ facilities. Mike Vrabel doesn’t believe that to be the case.
“I mean, he came back for, to the best of my knowledge, Tom (Brady’s Patriots Hall of Fame) ceremony,” the Patriots coach said during his weekly appearance on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.” “So I guess he’s welcome back, based on the fact that he was there.
“Since his departure as the head coach here, he’s been back,” he added. “And I’ll leave it at that.”
Belichick reportedly banned Patriots scouts from attending UNC practices. The Tar Heels didn’t deny it and added it was “clear I’m not welcome there.”
“And they aren’t welcome at ours,” Belichck said. “Pretty simple.”
Since Belichick departed New England in January 2024, there’s been plenty of reports indicating there’s bad blood between the former Patriots coach and team owner Robert Kraft.
Belichick, as noted by Vrabel, was on hand for Brady’s enshrinement into the Patriots Hall of Fame in June 2024. But the 73-year-old did not attend the unveiling of Brady’s 12-foot bronze statue outside of Gillette Stadium over the summer presumably because he had UNC commitments.
Belichick has been known to hold a grudge. Ever since he left the Patriots, he’s been adamant that it was a mutual decision. Though Kraft said during an appearance on “The Breakfast Club” podcast that he fired the coach. Belichick never mentioned Kraft in his 304-page book, and he appeared to take a shot at the Krafts when asked by The Boston Globe differences between coaching in the NFL and college.
“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. “Generic NFL teams, you have the owner, president, general manager, personnel director, college director, pro director, cap guy, some other consultant, then head coach. I’d say when we had our best years in New England, we had fewer people and more of a direct vision. And as that expanded, it became harder to be successful.”
Multiple sources told MassLive’s Mark Daniels that Belichick’s ire began to fester after he was told he couldn’t retain Matt Patricia as New England’s offensive coordinator despite an ugly 2022 season. In 2023, Belichick became upset that Jerod Mayo signed a contract that named him the coach in waiting and he refused to speak to Mayo.
Despite Belichick’s negative feelings about the Krafts and the Patriots, Kraft said once Belichick’s coaching career concludes, he wants to put a Belichick statue next to the Brady one.
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