Patriots, Bill Belichick Acting As If There Won’t Be Coaching Change

As of late Monday morning, the Patriots neither looked nor sounded like a team preparing for an immediate head coaching change.

It was fair to wonder whether a change was imminent. New England on Sunday dropped to 2-8 after a humiliating loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Frankfurt, Germany, where Robert Kraft publicly expressed his disappointment over the lost season. And if the Patriots ever were to fire Belichick, it would’ve made sense to do it Monday, thus allowing an interim head coach — Jerod Mayo, probably — to take advantage of the bye week.

However, despite mounting speculation over Belichick’s job status, multiple recent reports indicate it’s more likely a change will be made during the offseason. And all signs after Sunday’s loss point in the same direction.

First of all, each Patriots veteran asked about Belichick stood by their head coach. There is nothing to suggest that anyone inside the locker room believes a change is needed.

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But the real clues arrived Sunday afternoon, when the Patriots announced Belichick would make his regularly scheduled WEEI appearance and video call with reporters on Monday. Those aren’t pre-scheduled emails; New England sends those out after confirming Belichick will be present.

And Belichick showed up for both, which obviously is important. If there were any chance of Belichick getting fired this week, the Krafts surely wouldn’t allow the greatest coach in NFL history to first make multiple media appearances. That would be an embarrassment for both Belichick and the franchise.

But Belichick’s comments and demeanor during the availabilities also is worth noting.

During his “The Greg Hill Show” appearance, Belichick gave off a business-as-usual vibe, putting all the focus on New England’s Week 12 game against the New York Giants. He sounded genuine in his commitment to salvaging the rest of the season.

And he sang a similar tune while speaking with reporters during the video call.

“Everybody is working hard,” Belichick said. “I know we’ve been close. We just haven’t been able to finish enough and make the plays that we needed to make here in critical situations at the end of the game to win. Everybody’s committed to working hard to change that. We’ve put ourselves in that position multiple times here, but we just haven’t had the results that we’re looking for, and we’re going to work hard to get those results.”

There also were these comments about the logistics of the bye week:

“That’s something we’ll talk about today. Everybody put everything they had into the Germany trip and the Colts game. It was a long flight back, and we’re just kind of getting reorganized here. So, we’ll try to get a good, clear head and think about how to use the time that we have in the best way, whatever that is for our team and moving forward. So, those decisions will be made here going forward. Honestly, like I said, I don’t think last night in the middle of the night coming back from Germany was a great time to make a lot of decisions. So, we’ll kind of wait until we can kind of recalibrate here and get settled. We have time. We’ll take a look at it and try to do what we think is best. Obviously, the players will be off on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That’s part of the collective bargaining schedule. So, we’ll work around some of the other days here that we have and, like I said, try to do what’s best for the team, both in terms of rest and improvement.”

That doesn’t sound like a coach who’s been given any indication he could lose his job this week. And there’s no way the Krafts would willingly blindside Belichick with such a decision.

Obviously, things could change in the hours and days ahead. But, for now, Belichick’s job appears to be safe — even though he might be coaching on borrowed time.