Patriots: Bill Belichick needs to talk less about 2021 season

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick needs to talk less about the 2021 season and focus more on what’s in front of him.

The New England Patriots haven’t done much losing since the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady partnership entered the fold in 2001. During their 20-year run together, the two legends came out on top in six of their nine (!) Super Bowl appearances and notched a whooping 17 AFC East titles.

That ridiculous stretch includes 11 straight playoff appearances, but that streak is in serious danger of being broken this season, as the Brady-less Patriots currently sit at 2-5 after a crushing road loss to the division-leading Bills this past Sunday.

While there’s still a slim chance that Belichick’s depleted side makes a second-half surge and squeaks into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth, most fans in New England are of the understanding that nothing significant will be achieved this season.

However, that doesn’t excuse the 68-year-old head coach continually discussing the upcoming offseason and 2021 campaign as a whole. We love Belichick, but he needs to talk less about the future and focus on the task at hand, and that is turning the season around, which starts with taking care of an historically bad New York Jets team on Monday night.

At the very least, don’t telegraph these excuses already.

To be fair to Belichick, it’s not like he went out of his way to point out the fairly obvious fact that the Patriots are striving to preserve their salary cap space in 2020 so that it carries over into next season, when the cap will be lowered due to revenue complications stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, he isn’t obligated to answer every question from the media. We’ve lost count as to how many times Belichick has simply deferred a question to another member of the coaching staff or front office, and Patriots fans can attest to that. In many instances, the six-time champ has even played the increasingly controversial “next question” card.

We’re not saying that Belichick should’ve gotten antagonistic during this particular interview, but what does it say to the players in the locker room that he isn’t willing to dish out money to improve the roster and give them a better chance to win games? In a vacuum, he’s essentially saying that this team, as presently constituted, isn’t good enough to win and won’t be until the offseason, when he’ll have the financial flexibility to make upgrades, whether it be via trade or signing players in free agency.

Shades of Dave Dombrowski at the 2019 Red Sox trade deadline.

Folks have been critical of Belichick for not offering enough in front of the microphone for years now, but he definitely went a little too far in these instances. That sounds crazy to say given his track record, but all that we ask is that he focuses on the present, because hinting at what the future might hold or insinuating that this is a reset year cannot sit well with the players in the Patriots locker room, no matter how much value his comments might hold.

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