David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports Despite questions about his future, Belichick is following the status quo for the moment. Whether or not Bill Belichick will remain head coach and de facto general manager of the New England Patriots in 2024 has yet to be decided. For the time being, however, he is following the same end-of-season playbook he has used in years past. Speaking to reporters on Monday morning, Belichick outlined what that process will look like for him and the organization. Unsurprisingly, though, he did not entertain any hypotheticals about what may or may not happen as a result of that. What he did say, however, is that he is still under contract with the team — a rarity for Belichick. “I’m under contract, do what I always do, which is every day I come in work as hard as I can to work the team in whatever way I can. So, that’s what I’m going to continue to do” Belichick said during his opening statement. “End-of-the-year process, I don’t think, will be fundamentally any different from the standpoint of how it’s done. The decisions, that’s a whole other conversation. How it’s done, I’ll meet with Robert like I always do, meet with the staff, meet with the personnel department, kind of recap the season from the big picture, and then some of the individual situations that are looming one way or another. But that’s obviously a long, long way off from where we are right now.” The 71-year-old, who is coming off his 24th season leading the Patriots, continued saying that Monday would be a wrap-up day of sorts that includes meeting with the players. The locker room will be cleaned out throughout the day, with only a handful of rehabilitating players sticking around the building in the coming weeks. Who will be running the show both on the coaching and personnel sides of the football operations, in the meantime, remains up for speculation. Belichick, however, seems at least open to the idea of relinquishing some of his current responsibilities. “Look, I’m for whatever we decide collectively as an organization is the best thing to help our football team,” he said. “I have multiple roles in that, and I rely on a lot of people to help me in those responsibilities. Somebody’s got to have the final say. I have it. I rely on a lot of other people to help. Whatever that process is, I’m only part of it.” Coming off a 4-13 season, the goal in all of that would be getting the team back to the standard that had been established over the previous two decades. Whether Belichick will be part of that rebuilding process will be seen; he is expected to meet with the team’s ownership on Monday to discuss the future. “It was, obviously, a very disappointing season all the way around. Players, coaches, staff, organization, everybody — it’s not anywhere close to what our standard and expectations are. Obviously, things need to be fixed,” he said. “We’ll start at the end of the day, put the pieces back together in terms of setting things up to go through a good, detailed analysis, and start reconstruction, if you want.” Source: https://www.patspulpit.com/2024/1/8/240 ... bert-kraft
