#What will determine Bill Belichick’s future? Patriots coach shares next step [Video]

More than an hour had elapsed since his 24th season finale as head coach of the New England Patriots. This one, a snow-blanketed 17-3 loss to the New York Jets, capped Belichick’s worst statistical season at the helm.

Four wins. Thirteen losses. A .235 winning percentage for a man firmly in the conversation as the greatest NFL coach of all time.

In the hour after the clock expired, the publicly stoic 71-year-old greeted Jets head coach Robert Saleh briefly and then sought out quarterback Aaron Rodgers on the field. Belichick joined his players in the locker room for a huddle ultimately broken down by longtime special teams ace Matthew Slater. He showered and changed from his ski mask and parka, the latter’s hood rapidly accumulating snow. Now, with a starched and striped button-down shirt, Belichick sighed and confronted the elephant in the room.

He knew what was on everyone’s mind. He didn’t want to elaborate, but he also didn’t bother playing dumb.

Belichick confirmed what’s next in determining his coaching trajectory. He will sit down with team owner Robert Kraft now that the season is over.

“It’s a disappointing year for all of us — players, coaches, staff,” Belichick said Sunday evening. “Entire organization. Not anything that any of us are in any way content with. But it is what it is. So I’ll address some questions on the game. As far as the future goes, I’ll sit down with Robert [Kraft] as I do every year at some point at the end of the season, and we’ll talk about things as we always do. I’m sure that will happen.

“But that’s really about all I have to say about that right now because there isn’t anything else to talk about.

“So any questions on the Jets game, happy to take a few of those.”

Is Belichick’s 2024 clearer than the Patriots’?

Minutes before 1 p.m. ET kickoff, the national anthem rendition at Gillette Stadium hit its final note. Belichick, toes squarely atop the yellow sideline paint, lifted his hands and stretched his striped gray beanie atop his head. He fastened his headset atop the beanie, the general reprising his command center. A Patriots-logoed parka already canvassed Belichick on a snowy day that favored the type of defensive football and schematic wrinkles on which Belichick built his mastermind reputation.

Like the powdered field over the course of the loss, Belichick’s immediate future is shrouded more than it has been all millennium.

Will Belichick coach the Patriots in the 2024 season? The overriding sentiment around Foxborough is no, but everyone willing to hint that quickly qualifies their comment. Team staff couch approximations he’ll leave with the caveat that they and their colleagues really don’t know what Kraft intends. They don’t know, for sure, whether Kraft knows what he intends.

A mutual parting of ways? A termination? A resignation? A trade? Could Belichick … stay? And if so, is he signing on to coach, manage personnel or both in Year 25?

“I enjoy coaching,” Belichick said when asked whether a season buried in injuries and losses dimmed his passion. “I like coaching the team. I like preparing the team, game planning, coaching on Sundays. But the results weren’t good. And none of us are happy with those.”

A paid attendance of 64,628 nonetheless invested in Sunday’s sludgefest, the fans almost certainly not drawn by the promise of high-caliber football.

Two sub-.500, playoff-ineligible division teams facing off with limited visibility in below-freezing weather? Sure, Jets fans could celebrate finally snapping the Patriots’ 15-game winning streak in their AFC East series. But at least some understood that the marquee event didn’t hinge on completions and third-down conversions. It centered on the septuagenarian in the beanie and headset.

“IN BILL WE TRUST,” read one fan’s sign from the front row near the 50-yard line, behind the Patriots’ bench. Two rows up, a white poster featured alternating red-and-blue letters that spelled: “Don’t Stop BILLieving.”

Those two homemade signs, however, were arguably the most visible fanfare for what could be the end of an era. On a snowy day that eventually masked even those signs, the franchise organized no formal tip of the cap to the coach who ran its dynasty. And the Patriots showed they can honor a staple when they want to: Players and Kraft alike sported sweatshirts in tribute to Slater, a 10-time Pro Bowler whose expected pending retirement was the most visible sendoff.

Belichick, as is his style, proceeded with business as usual.

He declined to confirm if he expects to be coaching the Patriots next season.

“I just finished the game here with the Jets,” he said when asked. “It was a very — I put everything I had into it this week and tried to prepare our team the best I could to play in it.”

Patriots players sort through mystery of Belichick’s future

Belichick is widely expected to continue coaching in 2024. Most view the question as “where,” not “whether.” He says himself he still enjoys the craft whose heights he has ascended.

Belichick’s chase of the NFL all-time win record is no doubt alluring.

His 302 regular-season wins rank third-most all time, 45 ahead of Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid. With 27 wins, he will surpass the record Don Shula has held since 1995 as head coach of the Miami Dolphins.

Longtime Chicago Bears head coach George Halas hit 318 victories by 1967, still good for second.

Belichick’s 31 playoff wins dwarf both, his six championship titles as head coach tying those of Halas and surpassing Shula (two).

None of that surfaced in locker room conversations Sunday night. Players tried more to imagine a world without Belichick as the head coach in New England.

“I mean, it just would be very surprising to me,” running back Ezekiel Elliott told Yahoo Sports. “It would be surprising if it was [his end here], just because on defense, we were good all year. Talk about how many injuries we had.”

“You lose a lot of your top defensive players, but for them to continue to play at a high level when we struggled all year, I think it just shows how good that defensive unit is, how disciplined they were, how well they played. I mean when you lose your top three, four guys, you expect things to fall apart.

“We’ve had a lot of injuries on the offensive line.”

Elliott knows acutely that the NFL is a business, the Dallas Cowboys releasing him last offseason after a 12-touchdown year. Still, to imagine Belichick changing colors?

“I couldn’t see him anywhere else,” Elliott said. “I’m sure it would be weird. I don’t know what’s in store but I love playing for Bill.”

And Belichick, per his message to the locker room, loved the players who played for him. Players emphasized Sunday night that while he didn’t show more emotions than usual, they also believe he’s more emotional — or more personal, to be precise — than his public reputation reveals.

Coach didn’t criticize players after Sunday’s loss. He emphasized learning and growth.

“He appreciated us fighting and continuing to fight throughout the season,” safety Kyle Dugger told Yahoo Sports. “[To] just learn and continue to grow.”

As of late Sunday night, Belichick was scheduled to address reporters at 7:30 a.m. ET Monday and then hold a final team meeting for the season at 9 a.m. Players will clean out their locker room and perhaps sit through additional exit interviews. At some point, be it Monday or soon after, Belichick will sit down with Kraft — the two men anchoring a decision that could rock the league.

Belichick declined to say whether he expects to coach the Patriots next season and declined to say whether he felt different in the postgame haste.

Beyond opening remarks, Belichick kept his word: He offered little about his future. He offered little, even, about how he felt.

“Disappointed about the way the game turned out, sure,” Belichick said.

After a pause, he added: “Yeah, let’s leave it at that.”