Jerod Mayo is Fielding Questions About Replacing Belichick and We're Discussing Mr. Kraft's Trade Demands. Is This Real Life?

Jim Rogash. Getty Images.

There are things in life that you know will inevitably happen to you, but they're only abstractions until they slowly become reality. When you're in school, and you dream of graduating so you never have to answer to anyone or do tiresome busy work ever again. (Good luck with that.) Starting your first job. Quitting your first job. Getting married. Having kids. Retiring. Even dying. (Though that one in your imagination is always you giving up your life in a heroic display of courage that will be honored for eternity. As opposed to, say, found hanging from a closet pole in an act of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone horribly wrong.) Until you actually find yourself being handed that diploma, standing at the altar, holding that baby or whatever, it's all just theoretical. Like Plato's The Allegory of the Cave, mere shadows on the wall of a reality you've never experienced. And which your brain can only barely imagine. 

So it is with the ever-increasing possibility that Bill Belichick might be coaching his final games in New England. I can't begin to guess how many times over the years I've been asked how I think his time with the Patriots will end. But if I had a buck for every time I've answered the question, I wouldn't have to sit here making masturbation jokes and referencing Greek philosophers in order to sound educated. 

But the whole scenario seems more … "normal" isn't the right word - let's go with plausible - by the day. Take today for instance. Jerod Mayo had a press availability today. And since he's been assumed to be the likely successor to Belichick's throne if the day should ever come, he was asked about it:

To be clear, I have no problem whatsoever with Mayo's answer. In fact, it was pretty much perfect. I don't know what the future holds. I do want to be a head coach. I love it here. So does my family. Etc. It's just the fact that it's such a casual topic of conversation now that I find unnerving. He might as well have been answering a question about how Jahlani Tavai has made himself an integral part of the defense. Imagine this discussion taking place with any other assistant at any other time in the last 24 years. Forget it. You can't. But now it's just another Q&A subject.

Next there's this debate, over what sort of demands Mr. Kraft would make on any team interested in the most important person any business mogul has ever hired:

Source - If, as it appears, Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Patriots coach Bill Belichick are careening toward a divorce after 24 years together, what will it look like?

Many believe that Kraft is hoping to land the plane in a way that allows him to secure compensation from whoever employs Belichick next, while also allowing the two sides to separate in an elegant way. It’s an admirable goal. But there’s only one issue with that.

Why would Belichick go along with it?

He has no reason to. He gains nothing. He’s under contract for another year, at a number undoubtedly north of $20 million. If he sticks around and coaches the team, he’ll earn the money and, after the 2024 season ends, become a free agent.

If he …  goes along with a plan that positions the Patriots for compensation, Belichick gains nothing.

To reiterate, the point of this blog is how surreal it is that we're talking about this after 24 years of unparalleled success and achievement. For all the blood, sweat, toil and tears that went into hanging the banners above Gillette, from the first one on the first official game in the stadium to the last five seasons ago, and all those Lamar Hunt Trophies (that are kept in a storage room in the basement next to the pile of Spygate tapes because nobody gives a shit about conference titles), to finally have people asking the question, "What is Belichick worth?" is hard to fathom. Again, it's something one could only imagine. And I'm having a hard time wrapping my feeble state college brain around it. 

That said, the idea that Mr. Kraft would simply let Belichick jump ship to a competitor and ask nothing in return is fucking Looney Tunes. I think there's way too much mutual respect between the two for there to be a showdown on the issue. But Belichick is too much of a pragmatist to not see he's the most valuable commodity in the league. And his services come at a price. Just like they did when RKK first compensated the Jets for him in 2000. (Against the advice of the entire football world, I might add.) Just like he demanded the Jets pay when they hired Bill Parcells away from him three years earlier. 

The NFL isn't some friendly game where you're playing just for chips. There's a buy-in at this table. And the stakes are high. I said Belichick is a pragmatist, but he's also a competitor. The most competitive of competitors. The idea that he'd expect to just be allowed to walk for nothing is laughable. Especially since he and RKK have both been done dirty by the other 31 teams all these years, taking draft picks away and suspending superstars for no reason. It would be ridiculous, not to mention disrespectful to all they've built together - to decide to play nice at a time like this. 

If anything, I think another team might get some consideration if it's a situation Belichick truly wants to go to. Think of the way he himself took less than he could've gotten for Jimmy Garoppolo because he liked him and wanted him to have a shot to play for Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch. Or Mike Vrabel, sending him to play for Scott Pioli in Kansas City. But that doesn't mean the bidding doesn't start with a 1st round pick. For openers:

Anything less would be doing a disservice to your new coach and GM, as well as your fans. If the coach you're trading would rather spend a year fishing with Jimmy Johnson and come back at the age of 73 in order to choose his own employer, so be it. But giving away the GOAT of coaches for nothing would be like giving up the GOAT of players four seasons ago. And we all remember how that played out.

Annnddd … nope. Blogging about this doesn't make it any more believable. I'm in for a wild four weeks.