 proud of the way the players in the team competed. But not the results, obviously, from any of us. Starting with me and all the way down to everybody else that was involved in it, I know we all feel the same way. So I'm going to contract, do what I always do, which is every day I come in, work as hard as I can to help the team in whatever way I can. So that's what I'm going to continue to do. All right, welcome to our Bella Early Edition. I'm Trinna Casey. I'm under contract. I believe Tom Jals is also under contract. So is Tommy Kern and Sil Perry our Patriots insider. Guys, an interesting season ending press conference from one Bill Belichick. The one thing everyone is holding onto is the fact that he said, I'm under contract. That seems to be the big line, the big takeaway. What are you taking away from one line from today? Well, that would be the biggest one to me because it was in his opening statement. It's not like anyone asked him. So he voluntarily lets you know that he's under contract, which to me kind of means like, I'm digging in, I'm here. And, you know, like, get ready, strap in, here we go. Yeah, to me, that's the crux of it. He acknowledged it a little bit, I think, in yesterday's post game, especially when he was asked about Bailey Zappi and next year insinuating that I don't even know if I'm going to be here making that decision. But to mention the contract outright, obviously, helps everyone understand that he knows that there is a decision to be made about his whereabouts. So the conversation that he engaged in about I'm going to get to work, it basically means, to me, Phil, Bill's going to go down in the lab and until somebody goes, he's just going to keep working on a way. Which I don't blame him, as one would do. Right, what else are you going to do? So, are you going to fire me? Why ask? You should want to have that conversation, though, at some point and figure out what your future holds. No doubt. Of course, he understands that that has been the conversation swirling around him now for weeks, if not months. And so my takeaway from that particular comment is, it feels as though he's setting the stage. I'm under contract, I'm willing to work. He mentioned how things need to be fixed many times. He talked just last night about how much he still likes coaching. So I put all those things together and the I'm under contract indicates to me, if we end up parting ways here, I'm letting you know right now what the camera's rolling, that it was their call, not mine. Yeah, that's how I interpreted it. To me, it was a, I don't wanna say a shot across the bow, but like a warning sign, like, hey, you don't want me here anymore, that's fine. But just know that I'm not going to go quietly. This is not going to be an elegant solution. If you don't want me here anymore and you want a part with a six-time super bowl-winning head coach and you think that the time has come, people are going to know that you're firing me, not that there was any ambiguity. We're not going to find any wording or anything that's going to make it seem like it was a mutual parting of ways. But did the tenor sound any, did it sound at least a little bit different? Did it almost sound like Bill was, I don't want to say, you know, coming hand-in-hand to the podium, but just... No, yeah. You know, it just felt a little bit different than it has certainly earlier this off-season. And I do think that he can be dismissed without it being messy. I think if the craft's a beautiful testimonial to all the things that he's done and say we're heading in a different direction, it doesn't have to be messy. And Bill doesn't have to be rankerous. And it doesn't have to be, if an elegant solution or a way of parting it isn't reached, then it doesn't have to be horrible. People I talked to who are in the building today said, it's kind of smooth right now. We're going about our business. When a decision's made and we're not expecting one tonight to be announced and it could be later in the week, but there is a decision to be made and announced is the way I would phrase it. There is a decision to be announced. Yeah, I think the way you come to an unelegant solution is if you try to hold on to them because you're trying to make a trade and you're trying to get some compensation back because you didn't get anything back for Tom Brady and damn it, you're going to make sure you get something back for Bill Belichick. And you're going to hold on to them for as long as you have to until it's clear and obvious that you can't trade Bill Belichick. And then if you plan on moving on from him, well, then maybe you release him and then maybe try and hit all the jobs that he wanted in the first place that have become available, have all of a sudden dried up and they're not available any longer. That to me is about as bad as it could get in terms of ugliness of the breakup. In some ways, the most elegant thing would be to just fire him, do it soon and allow him to pursue whatever opportunities he wants to pursue. Well, beside him telling everyone he is under contract, one of the other pieces of information today that grabbed a lot of headlines was when Belichick was asked this morning about staying on as head coach but relinquishing his personnel duties in order to do so. Look, I'm for whatever, you know, collectively we decide as an organization is the best thing to help our football team. And, you know, I have multiple roles in that and I've relied on a lot of people to help me in those responsibilities if somebody's got to have the final say. I have, I rely on a lot of other people to help and, you know, however that process is, you know, I'm only part of it. Current, as I'm scrolling through X this morning as these quotes are coming out, the overwhelming interpretation of that was, yeah, of course I give up my GM duties. I'm happy to do that. Is that how you heard that? No, it's an absolutely wild interpretation of what Belichick actually said. I'm open, despite him saying it in such a pleasant manner, what he said was I'm open to listening to what we can decide collectively is acceptable to me to help our football team. Again, as Phil just pointed out, pointing out he is part of that. And then also spreading around the responsibility as if he's just a cog in the machine. Look, do you think that Bill Belichick is gonna sit there and if they say you're gonna not be able to do this, this and this, Bill's just gonna not, you know, Bill, when he says collectively decide, he's gonna have input in that decision. And there's gonna be things that he would not even consider doing, I'm sure. Additionally, if the Patriots are sitting there at number three and Bill's got a year left on his contract and Elliott Wolfe, for lack of a better example, says, we're gonna go with an offensive tackle or we're gonna go with Jaden Daniels and Bill wants something completely different. Do you think Bill's just gonna go? Okay, all right, that's cool. No, it's not realistic. It's not conceivable that that would be a functional relationship with whoever is maybe quote-unquote above Bill Belichick in that instance. But I will say the way he answered it, Tom, because he could have, what he could have said was, I'm not gonna engage in a lot of hypotheticals here, okay? And then you move on. And then that's really not answering the question everybody assumes, well, he's gonna want personnel power wherever he goes. He did leave open the door. If you look really amenable today in front of that camera at that time, it at least gives the outward appearance that Bill's pretty agreeable here. They being unreasonable with him. And whether or not he actually feels, that's just a message. Maybe that's just a message to the crafts or it's a message to his future team. Hey, I'm open to conversation here. I got some wiggle room and whatever I want in my next contract. Whether he actually believes it or not, it's still, in my opinion, not realistic. There's not a general manager on the planet right now who wouldn't look at Bill Belichick and say, okay, Bill, whatever you want. Well, and I don't know about you, Joss, but what caught Curran's ear also caught my ear, which was how at the end, he also said, oh, well, this has been collaborative. And I'm paraphrasing, basically, this has been collaborative for a while. There's a lot of people involved in decision making. To me, that's almost a message of, hey, this mess, it's not just my fault. To me, I would have rather had him, I would have rather him say, what happened this year is on me, not, and even in his opening statement, he went so far as to say this was a collective failure on the part of an entire organization. Never once did he say this is on me and I would have to think the crafts hear that. Well, the other thing too is that he's speaking to a, what I thought was a small fraction of fans, but maybe he's a much larger fraction of fans, saying I'm willing to do all these things. Said I'm willing to meet you in the middle and stay on as a head coach. I'm willing to do, I was shocked yesterday, you guys in post-game live ran the poll. Do you want Bill Belichick back next season? And over 50% said that they did want Bill Belichick back. I think we ran that same poll two months ago and I feel like that was like an 80-20 split. You know, it's just the closer we got to the finish line, you've noticed that fans are just becoming a lot more emotional with it and a lot more attached and I think, you know, having a much more difficult time kind of moving on from it. I wonder how much the realization that the crafts do have their inclination to move on from Bill and a decision made from Bill. Had that news been the crafts are going to stick by Bill Belichick and there will be no parting of the ways. I think that that number would be flipped. Whatever you're getting, you want the other thing. So I think if Bill was staying, this region would be in an uproar after a four and 13 season and that was, am I wrong? That the grass is always greener? That whatever you heard first. Yes, yes, I think a poll like that one probably is indicative of a vocal minority as is social media, generally speaking, right? We all overreact to what we see on Twitter when it comes to fans and the like interacting with, but in all reality, they are speaking for a much smaller percentage of what's actually out there in terms of consumers. I would agree with that. I just feel like as we got to the end of the season. You're right, the sentimentality is kicking in. The nostalgia is kicking in. It definitely did. I mean, I think we can all admit it was kind of hard to watch yesterday. Like even though I think we all agree from a business perspective and a franchise perspective, it is time for them to move on. It was, I mean, listen, I shouldn't feel sorry for Bill Belichick. No, he's sick and he's standing there with a pocket full of snow. Literally doesn't feel well physically or mentally and you see someone who took a franchise and took them to the pinnacle of everything and to have it fall apart and end in that manner against the jets, like it made me kind of sad. It made me a little sad for him. Does it make Robert Kraft sad to the point that he wants to bring him back? Well, I hope not. Like I hope you can separate and understand that if you're a business person, okay, this emotion is separate from the right decision, right? That's what Robert Kraft said at the owner's meetings in adding to the testimonial of how great Bill has been. In the end, it's a business and we're in a transition phase and we need to contend for the playoffs. There is absolutely no way you can divorce yourself even if you load Bill Belichick, which I certainly do not and I've had many great conversations with him at press conferences and privately. There is no way that you can divorce your feeling of, wow, it's gonna be strange and suck to see him gone. I had a lot of good days courtesy of him and I've never seen anybody like him. So you're gonna miss that. Even if some people think he's a rock in their shoe, you're gonna miss that rock in your shoe when it's gone. And fans, I'm sure, feel the same way. And so there are a lot of people out there who are, can they just make it work? Can they just figure out a way right now? But if you're making the business decision, you're being cold about it. If you're being the way, honestly, Bill Belichick would be about a decision like this one, you're probably going the other way. Why do they have to make a decision? Like when does delaying a decision start to hurt the franchise? I think they start to look as if they got cold feet by Thursday. I said to fill Thursday at four. They don't have something by Thursday at four. It's a long time. Yeah, I just think today. That's interesting, you say that because I feel like that's quick. Today's the meeting. Tomorrow is gonna be probably a little bit of, say goodbye to players, et cetera and set the stage and Bill talked to his staff and then I would think Thursday. I just say, the reason I say that's quick is the franchise, Big Picture, is it impacted based on a couple of days leading up to the wild card round? In my opinion. You're not being so halted in your search for a head coach and general manager that it's gonna impact you in a major way. Once you get to the senior bowl or something, like yes, that's up in two or three weeks, then yes, I think that's too long. But I think if the craft family is set on trying to get some compensation for somebody who already sounds like he has a market, then it's gonna take a little bit of time and you're gonna have to be willing to wait a little bit just to try to get that pick back. You need all the picks you can get at this point if you're the Patriots because of how it's gone.