“It’s safe to say a lot of people speculated that would be the case,” the source said. “Either he would be traded, or released or something of that nature. If you were to ask him, he’d say it himself that he wasn’t going to be back.”
Thomas and head coach Bill Belichick had a falling out that got progressively worse over time, and it came to a head in December when Thomas was one of four players sent home for reporting late to a midweek team meeting. Thomas was benched four days later when the Patriots defeated the Panthers at Gillette Stadium, and the linebacker spoke out against Belichick for the second time of the season.
Despite Thomas’ public criticisms of Belichick, it seems like he managed to quell those feelings behind closed doors in the locker room. Thomas’ teammates were most certainly aware of the spat, but there weren’t any explosive incidents between the coach and player.
“For business and professionalism’s sake, I guess they just tolerated each other,” the source said. “The media saw it, and we saw it, too. Any time Bill was mentioned, [Thomas] really had nothing to say unless the camera was around. He didn’t really badmouth or bash Bill or anything like that.”
Thomas had a strong personality, and his deteriorating on-field performance caused the fans to grow tired of his antics. Yet, even though many had turned on Thomas, the linebacker kept a good rapport with his teammates.
“He was a great guy, cool to get along with, easy going, a really down-to-earth, humble guy,” the source said. “He was a great teammate, to be honest with you.”
After Thomas’ second benching, the rest of the team was too concerned with the final three games of the regular season to worry about any dissension between Thomas and Belichick. Again, they knew it was there, but a tight AFC East race with the Jets and Dolphins allowed the players to keep their minds on other things.
“Everybody just went about their business,” the source said. “The last couple games of the season, we’re fighting through a playoff push, so everybody really just came to work only concerned about what they can do, what they can fix. We weren’t focused on Bill and AD’s relationship. We were focused on more important things. We were more concerned with what we could control.”
