Jason McCourty: Kraft needs to hear these assurances from Belichick originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Bill Belichick’s job may be safe for the remainder of the 2023 season, but there are going to be some tough conversations when the New England Patriots‘ disastrous campaign comes to an end.
The Patriots enter their Week 11 bye with a 2-8 record that would give them the No. 3 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft if the season ended today. Mac Jones may have played his final game as New England’s starting quarterback, the offense is among the league’s worst, and speculation about Belichick being fired or even traded has run rampant.
If Belichick does make it to the end of the season, a sitdown with team owner Robert Kraft awaits. And if Belichick wants to continue as Patriots head coach/general manager, he’ll likely have to convince Kraft that there will be noticeable improvements in 2024 and beyond.
What would be the best defense for Belichick to remain with the team? Former Pats cornerback Jason McCourty, now an analyst for NFL Network, joined Tom E. Curran’s Patriots Talk Podcast and explained what he’d want to hear from Belichick if he were Kraft.
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“I think if you’re Kraft, you look at this situation and I think the biggest thing if Bill wants to continue to be there and he wants to continue to coach the team, it’s about a plan,” McCourty said. “And I think when those two guys sit down and they have a conversation, what is the plan moving forward after 2023 to say, ‘This is why we’re going to have success in 2024’?
“The only reason we’re gonna have success can’t be just because we’re gonna draft a quarterback with our first pick in the first round and he’s gonna lead us to success because more often than not, that’s not quite how it works. And then you look at everything that’s transpired on the offensive line with so many different people plug-and-play at that spot, you look at the lack of talent in the wide receiver room, you look at some of the draft picks over the years that you drafted that haven’t been able to develop and flourish there. Is there coaching changes that if he’s talking to Kraft that he says, ‘I haven’t had the right coach in this spot or that spot, but I’m going to go out and get this person’? That, to me, is the biggest variable.”
McCourty believes Belichick, despite his six Super Bowl titles in New England, no longer has the benefit of the doubt.
“For Kraft, I don’t know if he’s going to be willing to just say, ‘You know what, Bill? Just do whatever you do. Come back and fix the team in 2024,'” McCourty said. “I think it may be those hard conversations of like, ‘If you want to come back, what are you bringing to the table that’s gonna change the outcome of where we were in 2023?'”
Also in this episode:
