The last few weeks have featured plenty of speculation about Belichick’s future, but he’s still the head coach of the Patriots for the time being and Thursday night showed that he can still put together a winning game plan.
New England went out to a 21-3 lead and held on for a 21-18 win that lifted their record to 3-10 on the season. That victory won’t do anything to change the overall trajectory of the Patriots season, but it did make safety Jabrill Peppers happy because he feels Belichick has taken too much criticism for all of the losing that the Patriots have done this season.
“We needed it. I just feel good we could get it done for Bill and the rest of the coaches,” Peppers said, via Mike Reiss of ESPN.com. “I don’t really like all the flak he’s been getting, because it’s on us as players to go out and execute. I personally feel like the game plan has been phenomenal week in and week out, and when we had opportunities to make plays, we didn’t make them. But we made enough tonight.”
The schedule shows games against the Chiefs, Broncos, and Bills in the next three weeks, so the Patriots will have an opportunity to continue playing spoiler and add to Belichick’s push for the all-time coaching wins record while waiting to find out what team owner Robert Kraft has in mind for 2024.