Bill Belichick refused to bench Mac Jones as ‘f–k you’ to Robert Kraft: confidant

While Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft publicly gushed over each other in the coach’s exit from the Patriots after 24 years, a new ESPN report suggest turmoil was bubbling behind the scenes for years.

Seth Wickersham, Wright Thompson and Don Van Natta Jr. co-authored a story that explained the fissures and the psyches between the triumvirate of Tom Brady, Belichick and Kraft, as well as Kraft’s son, Jonathan.

According to the story, tensions grew so severe this season that Belichick was said by a “confidant” to have waited so long to bench struggling quarterback Mac Jones out of spite for the owner.

It was “a f— you to Kraft,” the source close to Belichick claimed.

That was because ownership pushed back when Belichick approached them about trading Jones in the offseason.

The hope was Jones could improve under new offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien and make good on the promise he showed as a rookie when Josh McDaniels ran the offense.

Jones regressed in his second season when McDaniels left for the Raiders and failed head coaches Joe Judge and Matt Patricia were foolishly entrusted to run the offense.

Instead, Jones endured a miserable third season that saw him ultimately benched for Bailey Zappe, but not before multiple humiliating defeats and performances.

But even when the team was winning one Super Bowl after another with Brady, there seemed to be a jostling between the towering figures for credit.

As Brady faced tense contract negotiations with Belichick, the coach presented Kraft “a study detailing how even the greatest quarterbacks drop off in their mid-30s” and traded up to select Jimmy Garoppolo in the second round of the 2014 NFL Draft.

Kraft served as something of a referee, until the situation finally came to a head and Brady left for the Buccaneers in free agency in 2020.

Brady won a Super Bowl in his first season in Tampa, naturally intensifying bitterness between Belichick and Kraft over the quarterback getting away and the Patriots’ own performance lagging.

Without Brady, the team has missed the playoffs three of the past four seasons, and Belichick entered this season squarely on the hot seat.

In recent years, Robert Kraft allegedly mocked Belichick in private as “the great, intelligent man” and Jonathan had also soured on the head coach.

“That guy’s got to go,” Jonathan Kraft reportedly said privately of Belichick in late 2022. “He’s done.”

Meanwhile, Belichick reportedly believed the Krafts were meddlesome and was said to have told confidants that they “had eroded the culture he had built over two decades.”