For some Sunday Splash! reports, there’s an intriguing question that needs to be answered.
Who threw the stone?
In delivering Sunday morning’s news that Patriots coach Bill Belichick “quietly” signed a “lucrative” contract during the offseason, Ian Rapoport of NFL Media explained that Belichick’s arrangement with the Patriots is one of the most closely-guarded secrets in the league. So how did any information about the contract come to light? Either Rapoport donned a Hamburglar costume and struck gold (or ground beef), or someone specifically handed it to him, with the goal of getting the information out as the Patriots were on the verge of what most assumed incorrectly would be yet another loss.
Common sense points to the latter. And, after thinking it through over the past 24 hours, I believe Belichick himself wanted to slam the door on the growing talk that he could or should be fired during the season.
If the Patriots wanted to send that message, owner Robert Kraft would simply need to say, “There will be no coaching change during the season.” Kraft could say the same thing as to the possibility of a coaching change after the season. He has not yet done so.
The leak also could be interpreted as a message by Belichick to the Patriots and the rest of the world that he won’t be walking away. The word “committed” was used in the report. In other words, Belichick’s not quitting or retiring. “If you want me to go, you’ll have to pay me.”
In the end, whatever the buyout might be won’t stop Kraft from making the change. It’s a cost of doing business. A parting gift. An inevitable expense to be encountered when finally making a change.
Yes, money is money. But it’s all a business expense and a write-off and the Patriots are doing incredibly well and Kraft will barely bat an eye if he owes Belichick the balance of his contract, whatever the buyout might be.
Without knowing exactly what the buyout is, it’s impossible to attach any meaning whatsoever to yesterday’s news. But it accomplished its intended goal. Others repeated it with no scrutiny or analysis, presuming for themselves and their audiences that Belichick isn’t going anywhere, any time soon.
So, yes, he has a “lucrative” contract. Every successful NFL head coach does. And, yes, the deal covers multiple years. Again, few good NFL coaches are in the last year of their contracts. For the report to have any relevance to the question of whether the contract would keep Kraft from not keeping Belichick, we’d need to know the specific dollars that Kraft would have to spend to make a change.
Until someone deliberately leaks that information for a future Sunday Splash! report, we’ll assume that Belichick’s contract is not an impediment to Kraft making a change whenever he wants, if that’s what he wants to do.