Robert Kraft has reportedly already made a decision about Bill Belichick’s future with the Patriots

"Just because they won last week in Pittsburgh in primetime, I don’t think it quells anything."

Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick in Jan. 2023. AP Photo/Adrian Kraus

December 12, 2023

1 minute to read

The future of Bill Belichick as coach of the Patriots has become a central point of speculation amid the team’s first genuinely bad season in decades.

According to NBC Sports Boston’s Tom E. Curran, the decision about Belichick’s future has already been made by team owner Robert Kraft.

Speaking during a Monday interview on the Arbella Early Edition program, Curran explained the timeline and details of what he’d heard. Asked if there was a chance Belichick could keep his job with the Patriots beyond the current season, he spelled it out.

“When they came out of [the 10-6 loss to the Colts on Nov. 12 in] Germany, conversations I had that week made it very clear that a decision was made,” said Curran. “They were going to play out the string, and at the end of the year, there would be a parting of the ways for a variety of reasons.”

Curran noted that an in-season firing was highly unlikely, and that Belichick — reportedly under contract for one more year after 2023 — remains a piece the Patriots could deal away.

Having acquired him in a trade with the Jets in 2000, New England could still try to leverage the best return possible if other teams show interest.

Ultimately, Curran claimed that Belichick is beyond the point where he could save his job with the Patriots once the 2023 season ends.

“It had gone too far,” he explained. “The Germany game. The Commanders game. The Saints game. All huge, marquee games. And then there was the Chargers game after that.”

All of those games ended with the Patriots losing, a string of defeats that may have pushed Kraft toward a less lenient stance with the team’s longtime coach.

“Just because they won last week in Pittsburgh in primetime, I don’t think it quells anything.”