Adam Schefter
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Adam Schefter
ESPN Senior Writer
- ESPN NFL Insiders
- Joined ESPN in 2009
- Former president of the Pro Football Writers of America and author of four books
Mike Reiss
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Mike Reiss
ESPN staff writer
- Mike Reiss is an NFL reporter for ESPN covering the New England Patriots. Reiss has covered the Patriots since 1997 and joined ESPN in 2009. In 2019, he was named Massachusetts Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. You can follow Reiss on Twitter at @MikeReiss.
January 11, 2024, 7:08 a.m. ET
Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots are expected to part ways on Thursday after a remarkable 24 seasons together, ending an unprecedented streak in NFL history that included six Super Bowl titles, league sources told ESPN.
Belichick and Patriots owner Robert Kraft spent much of this week meeting regularly and discussing how both sides wanted to proceed. Sources familiar with these talks say there was no conflict or disagreement and in the end productive discussions led to an amicable decision that left both sides comfortable and relaxed.
Both Belichick and Kraft, as one outsider noted, “took the right path,” befitting an owner-coach tandem that will go down as one of the greatest and most decorated in NFL history.
Belichick, who has one year left on his contract, is allowed to leave the team without the Patriots demanding compensation. He will want to continue coaching and is expected to draw interest from at least some of the other seven NFL teams that have head coaching vacancies, including possibly the Atlanta Falcons, league sources said.
The Patriots will now be looking for a head coach for the first time in a quarter century. Patriots linebackers coach Jerod Mayo, whom the team signed to a contract extension in the offseason and whom Kraft identified as an emerging head coach candidate, expects to be one, if not the top candidate for the job, sources said. Mayo played for the Patriots from 2008 to 2014 and has been an assistant to Belichick since 2019.
Belichick's departure from New England is expected to come less than 24 hours after his close friend Nick Saban resigned from Alabama.
There is a symmetry and a similarity in the farewell of two football legends – men widely considered the greatest coach in professional history and the greatest coach in college football history. Belichick helped lead the Patriots to nine Super Bowl appearances and six Super Bowl titles; Saban led Alabama to nine SEC titles and six national championships.
Additionally, Saban succeeded Pete Carroll as Ohio State's secondary coach in 1980; Belichick worked with Saban in Cleveland from 1991 to 1994; and Belichick replaced Carroll as the Patriots' head coach in 2000 before all three left their longtime jobs within 24 hours this week.
The fact that Belichick and Kraft are going their separate ways is sad, but not surprising. Kraft had pointed out how important it was for the Patriots to make the playoffs this season. Instead, they were among the first teams eliminated on December 10th.
Speculation about Belichick's future swirled throughout the 2023 season, with one of the team's lowest points coming on Nov. 12 in a 10-6 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Frankfurt, Germany.
Before that game, Kraft, 82, told NFL Network about last season: “It was really disappointing. I was hoping things would get a lot better, and I know our fan base did too. … This is' This wasn't what we expected this year.
Another key factor for Kraft has been the franchise's evolution since quarterback Tom Brady's departure as a free agent after the 2019 season. Since the Brady loss that hurt Kraft, the Patriots have posted losing records in three of their four seasons, and their most recent playoff appearance -Victory was a 13-3 triumph over the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII on February 3, 2019 – when Brady was still with the team.
The 71-year-old Belichick leaves New England with 333 career wins, second all-time behind Don Shula and his 347. Belichick, George Halas and Curly Lambeau are the only NFL coaches with six championships since the league began in 1933 off-season operations began.
Belichick's 24-year tenure was the fifth-longest of any single-team head coach. In 2023, he had completed his 49th consecutive NFL season, the most consecutive coaching seasons in league history.
He now wants to spend the 50th season with another NFL franchise.
Belichick's resume also contains these signs that are expected to stick around for the foreseeable future:
• 17 division titles, the most by a head coach in NFL history, with Shula, Andy Reid and Tom Landry tied for second with 13.
• Nine conference championships, the most by a head coach in the Super Bowl era.
• 12 Super Bowl appearances (including time as an assistant).
• 21 winning seasons as a head coach, trailing only Halas (40), Shula (33), Lambeau (33) and Landry (29).
• One of four undefeated, undecided regular seasons in NFL history (2007). It was the only game as part of the 16-game schedule played from 1978 to 2020.
The Patriots are expected to hold a press conference sometime Thursday that will mark the end of a remarkable era in Patriots and football history.