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The Bill Russell trade is the greatest in Boston sports history, but Bill Belichick to the Patriots may be No. 2
Paying the price to hire Bill Belichick as HC of the NEP was the best deal Bob Kraft ever made, other than buying the franchise itself. Perhaps some day he will remember that.
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Forget, if you can for the moment, about how it ended.
Forget, if only temporarily, how Robert Kraft and son dropkicked Bill Belichick out the door.
Forget the graceless and transparent ending, a firing thinly disguised as a parting of ways, which hit a new low of tactlessness months later with a comically manipulative documentary desperate to make it seem like it was the only feasible act for the football world’s most patient men.
Forget all of that, the ugly punctuation on a glorious and unprecedented 20-year run of NFL excellence, if you can.
And remember how it began. Because Kraft’s decision in January 2000 to pay a steep price — including a first-round pick — to friend-turned-foe Bill Parcells and the Jets as compensation to hire Belichick as coach must count as one of the greatest trades in sports history.
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That is not to suggest Belichick-to-the-Patriots should finish first in Boston.com’s ongoing bracket of the best trades in Boston sports history.
Top-of-the-list, king-of-the-hill, a-number-one forever and always remains Red Auerbach’s maneuvering to make sure the Celtics ended up with Bill Russell in the 1956 NBA Draft, and if you have even an inkling of skepticism of that as the choice, I recommend you catch up on “Celtics City” or (shameless plug) read Chapter 2 of the “The Boston Globe Story of the Celtics” and then get back to me, properly chastened.
But the Belichick deal, completed on Jan. 27, 2000, at the apex of the “border war” with ex-Patriots coach Parcells and the dastardly, Curtis Martin-stealing Jets, may well deserve to be runner-up in the voting. And if you’re skeptical of that, consider the Patriots’ 17 first-place finishes in the AFC East, 13 conference title game appearances, nine Super Bowl trips, and six Lombardi Trophies procured on Belichick’s watch.
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Yes, he had the greatest quarterback of all time. Good thing Belichick drafted Tom Brady and had the sense to recognize there was something compelling and uncommon about the 199th pick in the 2000 draft, huh?
It’s fascinating now to look back at how it all unfolded, particularly since the Jets were a true nemesis then, rather than the butt-fumbling punchline that they became in concert with the ascendance of the Patriots’ two-decade dynasty.
Parcells belongs in the Patriots Hall of Fame for helping turn around a franchise that was so down in the dumps in the early ‘90s that at one point it was essentially the rental of a few U-Haul trucks away from ditching Foxborough for St. Louis. He drafted Drew Bledsoe over Notre Dame darling Rick Mirer with the No. 1 pick in the 1993 draft, and added future core pieces such as Willie McGinest, Ty Law, Tedy Bruschi, Lawyer Milloy, and Ted Johnson in subsequent drafts.
But wanderlust never failed to find Parcells, and when he was overruled in the 1996 draft and the Patriots selected receiver Terry Glenn (the right choice) against his wishes, the relationship with Kraft was scarred.
Parcells began flirting with the Jets, where he could do all of the grocery shopping, in the buildup to the Patriots’ matchup with the Packers in Super Bowl, and he was gone for New Jersey, mentally if not physically, right about the time Green Bay’s Desmond Howard finished his clinching punt return for a touchdown.
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The Patriots needed a new coach. They hired Pete Carroll, who would go on to have a decorated career but was walked on by Patriots players more often than the Foxboro Stadium sod in his three seasons of diminishing returns here. Kraft had been interested in hiring Belichick — who had been the assistant head coach and defensive backs coach on those ’96 Patriots — then, but he did not think the time was right to hire a Parcells mentee. Belichick followed Parcells to the Jets.
Three years later, when Carroll was fired at the conclusion of an 8-8 season in 1999, Kraft coveted Belichick, and Parcells — whose mastery of machinations and manipulations matched his tactical and motivational talents — knew it. He moved himself upstairs with the Jets, his shadow still sure to be prominent, and named Belichick head coach.
It was a savvy way to circumvent the Patriots’ pursuit of Belichick, and no one knew this better than Belichick. On Jan. 3, 2000, he accepted the job. It was the greatest day in Jets history that didn’t involve a Joe Namath prediction. On Jan. 4, 2000, he quit, famously scribbling on a cocktail napkin, “I resign as HC of the NYJ.”
The Patriots’ pursuit of him was stuck in an ego-driven stalemate for weeks. Kraft considered hiring former Panthers coach Dom Capers, who almost certainly would have won six fewer Super Bowls with the Patriots than Belichick.
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But on Jan. 26, Parcells broke the stalemate and the ice, calling Kraft — he said it was Darth Vader calling, an excellent icebreaker — and brokering the parameters of a deal. The next day, he faxed a letter to the Patriots. It began, “Dear Bob” — this was before all of the Mr. Kraft, Important Man nonsense — and granted the Patriots permission to talk to Belichick, with the terms of the deal spelled out if he were hired as coach.
The Jets would get the Patriots’ first-round pick (No. 16) in the 2000 NFL Draft, as well as fourth- and seventh-rounders in 2001. The Patriots would get a fifth-round pick in 2001, a seventh-rounder in 2002, and the defensive mastermind who would prove over a 24-season run in New England to be the best head coach in NFL history.
The reaction to the Patriots’ bold move was mixed, and amusing these 25 years in retrospect. Author Ian O’Connor, then at the Westchester (N.Y.) Journal News, panned the move beneath a headline that read, “Patriots Will Regret Hiring Belichick.” (O’Connor has had a great sense of humor about that column over the years.)
In the Globe, Dan Shaughnessy was all for it, which I’ll admit catches me by surprise in retrospect. “Belichick’s behavior in recent weeks indicates he might be enough of a wacko to be an effective NFL head coach,” Shaughnessy wrote. ESPN’s Ron Jaworski said, “I’m kind of a little surprised. Giving up a No. 1, I think, is a lot.” For some reason, former Patriots quarterback Hugh Millen was polled by the Globe. “I think it’s a relatively good move,” he said, proving slightly more decisive than he was as a QB.
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As it turned out, there was nothing relative about it. Paying the price to hire Bill Belichick as HC of the NEP was the best deal Bob Kraft ever made, other than buying the franchise itself. Perhaps someday he will remember that.
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