Legendary New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has hit back at owner Robert Kraft after the latter described his decision to hire Belichick as “a big risk.” The current North Carolina Tar Heels head coach has claimed that it was he who took the risk in joining the Patriots, revealing that he was heavily advised not to.
Bill Belichick Fires Back After Patriots Owner Robert Kraft Describes Hiring the Coach as a Gamble
In a recent live episode of “Dudes on Dudes,” a podcast hosted by Patriots legends Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski, Kraft recalled his decision to hire Belichick as head coach. “I gave up a No. 1 draft pick for a coach that had only won a little over 40% of his games to get him out,” he said.
“I don’t know if there are any Jets fans here. I think getting Bill Belichick to come to the Patriots in 1999 was a big risk, and I got hammered in the Boston media, but he was with us for 24 years and we did okay.”
Belichick was Robert Kraft’s greatest move as an owner 🏈 @Patriots pic.twitter.com/MF9S7o1uVJ
— DudesOnDudes (@DudesOnDudesPod) July 10, 2025
The hiring of Belichick wasn’t straightforward. The coach was contracted to the New York Jets, having served as an assistant to Bill Parcells for several years. Both Parcells and the Jets had penciled in Belichick to become head coach in 2000, but the Patriots had been attempting to steal him away.
Belichick shocked the NFL world with a public resignation during a press conference that was scheduled to introduce him as the new Jets head coach. He would instead take over in New England, and the Patriots were later forced to send their first-round pick to the Jets for the coach.
Reacting to Kraft’s statements, Belichick claimed there was significant risk in taking the Patriots job, suggesting that staying in New York was the safer option.
“As I told Robert multiple times through the years, I took a big risk by taking the New England Patriots head coaching job. I already had an opportunity to be the Head Coach of the New York Jets, but the ownership situation was unstable,” he told ESPN.
“I had been warned by multiple previous Patriots’ coaches, as well as other members of other NFL organizations and the media, that the New England job was going to come with many internal obstacles. I made it clear that we would have to change the way the team was managed to regain the previously attained success.”
The legendary coach pointed to the contrasting situations at both teams, suggesting that he’d taken on more of a project in New England than Kraft would admit.
“The Jets were a solid team after three years of rebuilding under Bill Parcells, which included an AFC Championship Game appearance in [January] 1999. Meanwhile, the Patriots Organization had dismantled their 1996 AFC Championship team and became one of the worst in the AFC. It didn’t help that they were $10 million over the cap heading into my first season as Head Coach in 2000.”
There are known to be some bad feelings between Belichick and Kraft after the team parted ways with their long-serving head coach following the 2023 season. This particular argument, though, leans in the coach’s favor.
The head coach already had a job lined up at an ascending team. The Patriots, meanwhile, needed a new head coach and identified Belichick as their top candidate; the first-round pick that it cost them didn’t come into play until after the move.
Belichick has had to deal with questions around his Patriots legacy after Tom Brady left New England and won another Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Kraft’s suggestion that he was fortunate to have been given the opportunity to coach the Patriots in the first place wasn’t something he was going to accept quietly.
