A agency handshake and an ungainly aspect hug with proprietor Robert Kraft on Thursday afternoon marked the ultimate moments of Bill Belichick’s 24-year tenure as the pinnacle coach of the New England Patriots.
Belichick and Kraft mutually agreed to half methods after a 4-13 season — the staff’s worst since going 2-12 in 1992 — closing the e book on one of many extra historic head-coaching runs in NFL historical past.
After an underwhelming five-year stretch as head coach of the Cleveland Browns, Belichick put collectively his soon-to-be Hall of Fame resume over the following 20 years, successful six Super Bowl championships, 17 division titles and three AP NFL Coach of the Year awards.
Under his steering, New England strung collectively 19 consecutive successful seasons, and Belichick broke NFL information for many playoff video games coached (44) and most playoff wins (31) whereas working his method as much as the third-most regular-season wins as a head coach in league historical past (302).
“Coach Belichick will forever be celebrated as a legendary sports icon here in New England and I believe (he’ll) go in as a Pro Football Hall of Famer on the first ballot,” Kraft stated throughout a Thursday information convention. “Why? Because he is the greatest coach of all time, which makes this decision to part ways so hard.”
While nobody can refute the historic profession Belichick constructed for himself, there may be an asterisk-shaped darkish cloud that has adopted the 71-year-old coach for greater than a decade-and-a-half — the consequence of a status constructed on an anti-establishment bravado and years of thumbing his nostril on the NFL and its guidelines.
Belichick preferred to function within the grey. He wouldn’t just cross the road occasionally, he’d leap rope with it. He did so steadily, and he discovered himself assembly with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about as typically as a highschool bully discovered himself on the principal’s workplace.
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