Graney: If the name wasn’t Bill Belichick, the seat would be hot

If his name was Joe Smith, he would be on the hot seat.

Of course, Joe Smith might have constructed a better team this season.

But it’s Bill Belichick we’re talking about, and for that the rules are different. It comes with winning six Super Bowls and having been victorious in more playoff games than any other coach in NFL history.

Sort of buys you some time and all.

The team he will bring to Allegiant Stadium to oppose the Raiders on Sunday is less than a shell of those dominating teams Belichick directed. The New England Patriots have been awful.

The past two games …

Opponents 72, Patriots 3.

The Patriot Way

It has all brought into question whether Belichick’s days as coach are actually numbered, whether time is close to running out on a Hall of Fame career, whether owner Robert Kraft really would part ways with the man who helped deliver him a boatload of Lombardi Trophies.

Maybe it’s this simple: The Patriot Way doesn’t work any longer. It died when quarterback Tom Brady left in 2020.

Belichick is 26-29 in the regular season since Brady bolted. The Patriots can’t get out of their own way.

Think about the Belichick coaching tree, assistants who went onto head coaching jobs in the NFL and college, failing to find success. Romeo Crennel. Eric Mangini. Matt Patricia. Josh McDaniels in Denver and now with the Raiders. And many more.

They all tried to be Belichick in one form or another. And none of them had Brady, who was the Patriot Way.

“You go back 10 years, and (Belichick) being on the hot seat was an unimaginable concept,” former Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan said. “It would have been laughable. I would be shocked if it’s a mutual decision. We don’t know what Bob Kraft is saying behind closed doors. He owes (Belichick) so much.

“If you want to play the game that it’s only because of Brady leaving — which I think is too simplistic — it’s true Bill has struggled badly since then.”

Perhaps this is the question folks should be asking: At age 71, why would Belichick want to continue forward with a once-dominant franchise that he built but shows little sign of being competent for the foreseeable future?

One this season that hasn’t scored a touchdown since Week 3 and sits 1-4 and going nowhere.

Why would he want to undertake the major rebuild that New England appears to need in a stacked AFC?

But this is also his team, built with his hands, raised by Belichick as general manger and coach and czar of all decisions. This is on him more than anyone else. You can’t ignore some of the missteps made by him as GM. You can’t misplace the fact that struggling quarterback Mac Jones has been through three offensive coordinators in his first three seasons.

It’s impossible to imagine Belichick falling on the sword and admitting his failings in what has occurred. Some close to the franchise said Belichick remains the same surly sort as always, perhaps even more curt than usual in response to lingering questions about his team. That he’s more button-upped than ever, if there are hoodies you can actually button.

But it has to be eating at him.

Come to a head

Ryan compares what’s happening to more than a few decades ago, when a certain Celtics coach also had full control.

“Rick Pitino was done in here by his general manager,” Ryan said. “Terrible decisions. Who was his general manager? Oh, it was Rick Pitino. We’ve seen this before, and I think we’re starting to see with Bill a deja vu situation all over again.”

Belichick doesn’t seem the type to surrender much power. So it all might come to a head at season’s end.

If things continue as such, Joe Smith would be fired.

But this isn’t Joe Smith. Which makes the puzzle all the more difficult to solve.

Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on X.