At the end of last week, before the Patriots sunk to 1–5 with a loss to the Raiders, I was a guest on 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston to deliver a verbal mea culpa for picking the Patriots to win the AFC East. It is something I believe we should all do when we go out on a limb, to communicate with the public that we are human, we make mistakes, there is a reason behind the mistake and we’re not just milking them for a few easy clicks. I explained my thought process—opposing coaches still believed that Bill Belichick had his fastball defensively and that Bill O’Brien’s time at Alabama would deliver him to New England with a cutting-edge offense—and accepted the fact that, for maybe another year or two, the massive undertaking of predicting all 272 games in June would be taken a little less seriously (if that were possible).
But the hosts, Fred Toucher and Rich Shertenlieb, asked me a fascinating question during the gentle-natured dressing down: Would you trade for Belichick if he were available? My brain exploded at the thought, not in a smug, James Franklin this-is-ridiculous-kind-of-way, but because the discussion is so rich with various pockets of history, theory and future predictive analysis. I don’t think Robert Kraft would ever trade Belichick. But I sure as hell would like to write about it.
To me, the central driving force behind this hypothetical move is so interesting because it embodies the ethos of the Patriot Way that Belichick himself created. While I do think Belichick is a far more nurturing and emotionally intelligent person than he is portrayed to be, there is a certain degree of callousness to his operating procedure, and there has to be when you are running a business. Essentially: If you are not operating within the confines of his system, you are expendable. One could make the argument that Belichick is no longer operating within the confines of the stated system.
