Patriots
It’s just the latest chapter of drama between Bill Belichick and the Patriots.
The petty wars between the Patriots and Bill Belichick are still ongoing.
Amid reports that UNC has banned Patriots scouts from its facilities, someone close to Belichick was told that a New England staffer was told to take off a Tar Heels t-shirt while they were in the team’s weight room, The Athletic‘s Diana Russini reported.
An unidentified member of the Patriots denied that happened, though, pointing out to Russini that Drake Maye has worn UNC gear around the team facilities without any problems. Of course, Maye attended UNC, while wide receiver Mack Hollins is also a former Tar Heel himself.
The alleged t-shirt drama is just the latest chapter of drama between Belichick and his former employer. It was reported earlier this week that Patriots scouts weren’t able to attend Belichick’s UNC squad’s practices.
An unnamed member of UNC’s athletic department confirmed that was the case in a statement to several media outlets.
“Why would we let them in our home after how he’s been treated since he left? We will help our players, but being treated fairly is a two-way street,” the unidentified member of UNC’s athletic department told The Boston Herald‘s Doug Kyed and Andrew Callahan.
Of course, a lot of the feuding between Belichick and the Patriots stems back to his departure from the team in January 2024 after 24 seasons with the organization. At the time, the team said it had mutually parted ways with Belichick. However, owner Robert Kraft later said that Belichick was fired.
There have been a number of other comments from Kraft that were perceived to be digs taken at Belichick. Some felt that the Apple TV+ docuseries, “The Dynasty,” took unfair shots at Belichick, while Kraft said in June that he took a risk hiring his former head coach.
Belichick fired back at the claim Kraft made. He also snubbed the Patriots’ owner in his memoir, “The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football,” failing to mention his former boss once in the book. He took another perceived dig at the Kraft family in August, mentioning that there’s no “owner” or “owner’s son” as a positive difference between coaching in the NFL and college football in an interview with The Boston Globe‘s Ben Volin.
The continued drama between Belichick and the Patriots comes as Mike Vrabel is set to coach his first game with the franchise he won three Super Bowls with. Belichick doesn’t have an issue with Vrabel or executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf, according to Russini.
Still, Vrabel said that it isn’t ideal that the Patriots’ scouts aren’t allowed to visit UNC.
“Oh, no, that’s an individual choice and we’ll cross that bridge when we start looking at players,” Vrabel told reporters on Friday. “I want to focus on our football team, and that’s their prerogative to make the decisions they feel like are best for them. And then we’ll have to find other ways to get the information for any players that we want to look at at North Carolina.”
As for Kraft, he seemed to try and mend fences with Belichick earlier this week. He told WBZ’s Dan Roche that he’d like to have a statue of Belichick made outside of Gillette Stadium.
“When that great 20-year era ended, it was always my intention to commission a statue for both Tommy and Bill when their respective careers were over, playing and coaching,” Kraft said. “When Bill’s coaching career ends, we look forward to sitting down with him and having a statue made to be right next to Tommy.”
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