The 2023 season will be over on Monday for 18 of the NFL’s 32 teams, and the New England Patriots will be one of those teams for the third time in four seasons without future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady.
The Patriots are the worst scoring offense in the league this season (14.6 points per game), and sitting with a 4-12 record, the most losses of Bill Belichick’s head-coaching career, there is a chance New England is going to “mutually part ways” — essentially fire — their six-time Super Bowl champion head coach.
Per The Athletic, the Patriots have a meeting set for next week between owner Robert Kraft, team president Jonathan Kraft and Belichick to determine Belichick’s future with the team going forward. He reportedly wants to continue coaching, but Dianna Russini reports some who work for the team are “expecting changes” and beginning to network elsewhere. She also wrote that the Washington Commanders, who are expected to fire head coach Ron Rivera, and the Las Vegas Raiders hope to meet with Belichick should he be available.
Both the amount of losses (12) and points per game (14.6) are the Patriots’ worst since the 1992 season, when they went 2-14. The following season, New England fired head coach Dick MacPherson and hired Bill Parcells.
Earlier this season, New England became the first team to lose three consecutive games with 10 or fewer points allowed since the 1938 Chicago Cardinals did so nearly 100 years ago. The team has been shut out twice this season. During the Brady era, the Patriots were shut out twice in 20 seasons, including the postseason.
Given that Belichick won an NFL-record six Super Bowls for New England, he has had some leeway in the post-Brady era, but outside of a 10-7 year in 2021, New England has had a losing record in three of the four years Brady has been gone. Between the lack of on-field success and the poor roster construction that…
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