New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has been told the time has come for him to retire from the NFL. Belichick, 69, is the most successful head coach of all time, but his Patriots side has struggled this season.
In truth, the Patriots haven't looked the same since quarterback Tom Brady departed for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The iconic No. 12 left after winning six Super Bowls with the Massecheusetts franchise.
Since then, the Patriots have gone through a string of replacement quarterbacks, and have been unable to recreate Brady's output. This season in particular they've been poor, with Mac Jones disappointing in the quarterback position.
But that hasn't been the only negative, with fans less-than impressed with the standard of coaching this season. On Sunday night in particular, the Patriots were heading for overtime against the 5-8 Las Vegas Raiders before a bizarre play was called involving two receivers throwing the ball backwards in an attempt to confuse the Raiders defence.
The play backfired spectacularly in the worst way possible. With no time on the clock, Jakobi Meyers threw the ball into the middle of the field with no Patriots player in sight. Tanner Muse caught the loose ball and strong-armed Jones to the floor before running 50 yards for the touchdown.
The reaction from Patriots fans was one of utter bemusement, despite Meyers insisting the error was his entirely. One famous Pats fan, Ringer CEO Bill Simmons, believes the time has come for Belichick to step aside from coaching and walk away from the NFL.
"It's time, Belichick needs to retire. Yeah. He does. He needs to retire," he said on his podcast. "I went back, I wrote this column in 2006 after the Bill Parcells season when the Cowboys lost and Parcells... remember when he sort of just kinda lost it? It was kinda sad and we were like 'remember when Parcells was an awesome coach, now he's out of it, he's taking pay cheques, doing dumb stuff'.
"I had this speed limit comparison where I said after coaches hit 50 things start to get dicey. Now people are coaching a little bit older, but him and Pete Carroll are the two oldest coaches in the league.
"Belichick is 69 and Carroll is 70. Third oldest is Andy Reid who is 64. For the most part, once you get in the 60s it's pretty unusual.
"I would much rather see him retire after this season than watch this for four more years. The thing about this Patriots season is this isn't a Patriots team. This is a team that is f**** up every quarter over and over again. Delay of game, false starts, stupid penalties, dumb decisions, bad game management, they never would have blown a game like this ten years ago.
"At some point... I don't really blame him as much as the coaching staff he's assembled. There's no coach on that staff that is getting poached. None. Zero. He's getting older and doesn't have that reservoir of young guys who are going to be Brian Flores or Josh McDaniels, or whoever. The team is sloppy, disjointed, they do dumb s***."
Simmons finished off his rant by proclaiming: "Belichick is the greatest coach of all time, I just don't want to see him go out like this."
