Bill Belichick hits out at comments made by former boss

Comments made by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft have been picked up by long-serving head coach Bill Belichick, and the six-time Super Bowl champion isn’t happy.

Kraft recently claimed that he had taken a “big risk” by hiring Belichick ahead of the 2000 season. At the time, Belichick had just been promoted to the role of head coach with the New York Jets but he would resign after just one day so he could take charge of the Patriots.

Belichick would go on to spend 24 seasons in charge of the Patriots, creating one of the most iconic dynasties in NFL history. Looking back, Belichick believes that it was he who had most to lose by moving to the Patriots.

“As I told Robert multiple times through the years, I took a big risk by taking the New England Patriots head coaching job,” Belichick insisted. “I already had an opportunity to be the Head Coach of the New York Jets, but the ownership situation was unstable.”

Belichick was offered the Jets job after head coach Bill Parcells had stepped down at the end of the 1999 season. Parcells had arranged for Belichick to take his place, before his understudy shocked the world with a dramatic immediate resignation.

“I had been warned by multiple previous Patriots’ coaches, as well as other members of other NFL organizations and the media, that the New England job was going to come with many internal obstacles,” Belichick continued.

“I made it clear that we would have to change the way the team was managed to regain the previously attained success.”

However Kraft’s actual comments related more to the agreement that he had to make to compensate the Jets for their outgoing coach. Both Parcells and the Jets insisted that Belichick was still under contract and they demanded payment to released him.

“I gave up a No. 1 draft pick for a coach that had only won a little over 40% of his games to get him out,” Kraft explained.

“I don’t know if there are any Jets fans here. I think getting Bill Belichick to come to the Patriots in 1999 was a big risk, and I got hammered in the Boston area, but he was with us for 24 years... And we did OK.”

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