4 coaches who solidified their pink slips after Week 17 losses
By John Buhler
3. Bill Belichick should not be trusted to make the right draft picks in 2024
Have the New England Patriots been more competitive of late? Yes. Does it matter? Not really, and why should it? This is a dead franchise in the wake of Tom Brady's departure and eventual retirement. Bill Belichick is not getting any younger, and the quarterback play is not getting any better. Now at 4-12 through 17 weeks, the Patriots are destined to be picking inside the top five. Don't trust Belichick...
He may have once had a huge advantage in scouting other NFL teams' bottom-of-the-roster guys, but long gone are his days of mining gems in the NFL Draft. Frankly, it is not important to him. When you are winning prolifically, the draft is not all that important. But when you suck like the Patriots have of late, the draft is of paramount importance. I just cannot trust Belichick to win in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Even if it is as simple as taking whoever is still left on the board between Caleb Williams out of USC or Drake Maye out of North Carolina, Belichick will probably stubbornly trade back to get a guard out of an FCS school, just to try and prove a point to us. For as great of a head coach Belichick has been, we are 1000 percent living in the past in Foxborough. Anytime you do that, everybody else laughs at you.
I hope Belichick agrees to retire so the Patriots can finally move on from this mess he has created.