If Bill Belichick’s run as Patriots head coach was a Scorsese movie, this week would have been the moment when the piano outro of “Layla” started up. The endgame is clear, the finale inevitable; all that’s left is to play out the string.
Whether this week’s report about Belichick’s impending departure is accurate or not is, in a sense, irrelevant. Belichick’s woes and struggles since Tom Brady left the franchise are a matter of established fact, and the warming glow of six Super Bowl rings has faded away. Were Belichick literally any other coach for any other franchise, he’d have been left on the tarmac weeks ago.