An NBC story says that the Patriots and Bill Belichick will no longer work together after the season.

An NBC story says that the Patriots and Bill Belichick will no longer work together after the season.

The New England Patriots’ 2023 NFL season is coming to an end, and they are already out of the playoffs. There are also two big questions about their future.

One has to do with quarterback. Bailey Zappe has been put in place of Mac Jones, who was the team’s first-round pick in 2021. At least one story says that the coach and the team will no longer work together after the season.

Belichick has won six Super Bowls with the Patriots and is known as one of the best coaches and defense minds in the game.

But the Patriots were 3-10 and hadn’t made the playoffs for the second year in a row. Belichick’s future with the club was becoming less clear by the day.

Tom Curran of NBC Sports Boston says that owner Robert Kraft made the choice after the team lost badly to the Indianapolis Colts within Germany, which showed how bad the quarterback play was.

Jones was taken out of the game so Zappe could play on New England’s last drive, which also ended in an interception.

Curran also said that the team’s recent win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in prime time, with Zappe in charge, was just too little, too late.

“It had gone too far,” he said. “The game with Germany. Commanders is a game. The game with the Saints. All of them are big-name games. After that, there was the Chargers game.

Belichick has won six Super Bowls with the Patriots and is known as one of the best coaches and defense minds in the game.

But the Patriots were 3-10 and hadn’t made the playoffs for the second year in a row. Belichick’s future with the club was becoming less clear by the day.

At least one report says that owner Robert Kraft has chosen to fire the coach and the team at the end of this season.

Tom Curran of NBC Sports Boston says that owner Robert Kraft made the choice after the team lost badly to the Indianapolis Colts within Germany, which showed how bad the quarterback play was.

Curran also said that the team’s recent win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in prime time, with Zappe in charge, was just too little, too late.

“It had gone too far,” he said. “The game with Germany. Commanders is a game. The game with the Saints. All of them are big-name games. After that, there was the Chargers game.

The biggest fight could be among Kraft and the general manager, Bill Belichick. Belichick is still one of the best coaches in the game, but the team choices he has made as a general manager over the past few seasons have made things harder for his head coach.

Say you look at their 2019 draft class. At the conclusion of the first round, they picked up N’Keal Harry.

In the second round, they picked up defender JoeJuan Williams. But they didn’t pick anyone from that year who is still on the team.

In 2019, they missed out on a whole draft class. Two years later, they missed out on a quarterback, which will set them back. Kraft might ask Belichick to step down as GM, and he might agree.

Of course, nothing is official until we hear from the owners. Also, Belichick has one year left on the extension his signed last summer. It’s possible that this is the start of a negotiation strategy, with New England hoping to trade Belichick to another team in the end.