Bill Belichick notched his first college victory last Saturday as North Carolina beat Charlotte.
Bill Belichick notched his first college victory last Saturday as North Carolina beat Charlotte.Nell Redmond/Associated Press
No matter how many UNC hoodies he cuts to size, or how many times he coaches the Tar Heels football team to victory, Bill Belichick still can’t quit the Patriots.
Why else would he confirm his pettiness the way he did after his first collegiate win Saturday? With a line delivered with the smirk and certitude our New England audience knows too well, Belichick acknowledged he did, indeed, ban a Patriots scout from his team’s practice because, “It’s clear I’m not welcomed in their facility, so they aren’t welcomed in ours.”
It’s getting tiresome.
Not welcomed? Since when? Did something new happen that forced a change in policy toward the six-time Super Bowl-winning, sure-fire Hall of Fame head coach? I couldn’t help but wonder, so I reached out to the franchise. A Patriots spokesperson confirmed that “Bill Belichick is, and always will be, welcome at Gillette Stadium.”
Though owner Robert Kraft had only recently mused about adding a Belichick statue to Gillette Stadium when Belichick is done coaching, no one in Foxborough was interested in a more detailed conversation about this latest salvo, understanding an ongoing tit-for-tat does them no good.
Besides, Belichick is doing more than enough to make himself look bad.
That was him, wasn’t it, at Tom Brady’s Patriots Hall of Fame ceremony a year ago June, standing at a microphone inside a raucous, sold-out Gillette Stadium, waving down an adoring crowd that didn’t want to end its standing ovation? The Patriots laid out the red carpet that night, seating Belichick near the Kraft family on the floor, holding his speech until the latter stages of the ceremony, and then making sure to introduce him as the greatest coach of all time. Do we really think by next year, when the first of the six Super Bowls Belichick and Brady won together hits its 25th anniversary, that Belichick would be disinvited from any planned celebrations?
From the Patriots’ standpoint, nothing has changed: “Bill Belichick is, and always will be, welcome at Gillette Stadium.” New coach Mike Vrabel confirmed the same on his Monday morning radio appearance, when he was left to address a rift created long after his own playing days were over, but one he understands because he knows the personalities involved.
“Nothing surprises me,” Vrabel said. “[Bill] came back for . . . Tom’s ceremony, so I guess he’s welcome back based on the fact that he was there. I’ll just go by that. Since his departure as head coach he’s been back and I’ll leave it at that.”
This is about Belichick still being salty over the divorce from the Krafts, taking any perceived slight and building it up in his mind. If he’s not the hero of a story, he seems intent on being the victim. Not that Kraft is innocent. From the absurdly one-sided “The Dynasty” documentary to the repeated reference to the “risk” he took in hiring Belichick, from the inclusion and trust in his son Jonathan (much to Belichick’s disdain) to the repeated description of their parting as a “mutual decision” rather than the obvious firing that it was, Kraft has done his share of post-divorce sniping.
They are both culpable. In hindsight, the dressed-up press conference announcing Belichick’s departure with such fanfare and fake adoration looks even more ridiculous than it did that day, painting neither man as truthful. Belichick clearly had his eyes on his next move, and Kraft was content to let him go. But when the 72-year-old Belichick didn’t get an NFL job, not in Dallas, not in Atlanta where it appeared owner Arthur Blank initially wanted him, no matter of denial by the Kraft side can convince him his former boss didn’t tank his candidacy.
He hasn’t stayed quiet since. There was his recent sitdown with the Globe’s Ben Volin, in which he talked up his job at the University of North Carolina partly because, “There’s no owner, there’s no owner’s son." There was the earlier snippy statement to ESPN after Kraft used a friendly sitdown with podcasters Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski to retell the risk of hiring a head coach who hadn’t yet shown his genius. Belichick shot back, insisting the risk was just as much his, and that he, too, had been warned by others about taking a “New England job [that] was going to come with many internal obstacles.”
And now this, a shot to Patriots scouts who might want to visit potential NFL talent in Chapel Hill, assuming Belichick eventually stockpiles some. For a man who consistently said his bottom line was about doing what’s best for the team, this is most certainly not what’s best for his UNC players, especially the ones on the fringe of the NFL Draft, the ones who could benefit from those pops in practice or moments in games to make a scout take notice.
Belichick is letting his suspicious and petty nature win out, perhaps convinced Patriots employees will share his practice secrets with college competitors. The little guffaw he let out while confirming the ban. The definitive “simple as that” he added to punctuate the conversation as over. We’ve seen, and heard, it all before.
Enough. It’s time he let it go.
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her @Globe_Tara.