Mike Reiss
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Mike Vrabel mentioned Invoice Belichick is welcome on the Patriots' facility “to the perfect of my data,” including that “nothing surprises me” with regards to the six-time Tremendous Bowl-winning coach's choice to ban New England scouts on the College of North Carolina.
Vrabel was requested Monday about Belichick's standing with the Patriots within the wake of Belichick confirming that he banned New England scouts as a result of it's “apparent I am not welcome at their facility.”
“Invoice got here again for, to the perfect of my data, [to] Tom's ceremony,” Vrabel mentioned in his weekly interview with sports activities radio WEEI, referencing Belichick's look at Tom Brady's in-stadium workforce Corridor of Fame ceremony in June 2024. “So I suppose he is welcomed again primarily based on the very fact he was there.
“I am going to simply go by that — since his departure as the top coach right here, he is been again. I am going to go away it at that.”
Belichick obtained an prolonged ovation for a sellout crowd earlier than delivering remarks that day. His son, Brian, additionally served on the Patriots' teaching workers in 2024 underneath then-head coach Jerod Mayo.
On Saturday evening, following his first win as head coach at North Carolina, Belichick confirmed his ban of Patriots scouts in saying, “It is apparent I am not welcome at their facility, so they don't seem to be welcome at ours.”
Belichick's reference to being welcome in New England is much less about his bodily presence on the facility and extra about being handled with respect, based on a supply near the previous Patriots coach.
Relations between Belichick and proprietor Robert Kraft have been strained because the sides parted methods in January 2024.
Belichick was painted in an unflattering gentle within the 10-part Apple TV+ documentary “The Dynasty.” And not too long ago, in an interview with the Boston Globe, Belichick spoke of the way it was simpler to create a shared imaginative and prescient at UNC and mentioned, “There isn't any proprietor; there isn't any proprietor's son.”
Final week, maybe in an try and clean issues over, Kraft advised WBZ-TV that he deliberate to erect a statue of Belichick within the coming years.
“When that nice 20-year period ended, it was all the time my intention to fee a statue for each Tommy and Invoice when their respective careers had been over, enjoying and training,” Kraft mentioned. “When Invoice's teaching profession ends, we sit up for sitting down with him and having a statue made to be proper subsequent to Tommy.”
Vrabel's feedback got here in the future after the Patriots misplaced to the Las Vegas Raiders of their season opener. It was the Patriots' teaching debut for Vrabel, who spent eight seasons as a participant underneath Belichick in New England and was employed to exchange Mayo earlier this 12 months.
