Shannon Sharpe Believes It’s Easier For Bill Belichick To Leave Patriots

The New England Patriots are in a place they haven't been in in a very long time.

At 1-4, sports analysts are wondering if Bill Belichick is in the hot seat as both the coach and general manager in New England.

Retired NFL tight end Shannon Sharpe channeled his inner Neil Sedaka and said "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do."

"Here's the thing, we've all been in relationships," Sharpe said on ESPN's "First Take" on Tuesday. "Breaking up is easy when you're the one doing the breaking up. When the other party wants to be the one that's breaking up is a little harder. It's easy for Coach Belichick to move on, as opposed to Mr. (Robert) Kraft wanting to move on from Coach Belichick."

The three-time Super Bowl champ said he didn't want to diminish what Belichick has accomplished with the Patriots but feels he's in the spotlight without a top-tier quarterback.

"When you had Tom Brady ... there were very few times that you touched the field that you didn't have the best player on either side of the football, which was Tom Brady," Sharpe said. "Now, when you step on the field, none of them; you might not even have the top five, nobody in the top five, ten. So, it becomes more and more difficult."

Sharpe added: "I'm not trying to diminish what Coach Belichick has done, because he's done an unbelievable job. But I think the thing is we need to reassess and give Tom Brady because Tom Brady was able to cure a lot of mistakes."

The Hall of Famer added that not having a quarterback like Brady can be detrimental to an offense -- especially if you look at JuJu Smith-Schuster's statistics with Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Mac Jones and the Patriots.

"You see the difference? The quarterbacks matter, they really really matter and if you can get one now I'm not saying the likelihood you probably never get another Tom Brady," Sharpe said. "Coach Belichick is not going to get a lifetime contract. Because I think he and Mr. Kraft are so diametrically opposite on the way they think and how they are as a person."