The New England Patriots made the decision to move on from head coach Bill Belichick after nearly 25 years together.
One Patriots star thinks it was time. In an appearance on Good Morning Football on Wednesday, star pass rusher Matthew Judon said he loved learning from Belichick, but admitted it was time to part ways.
“It was amazing to learn from him. But I think just with him leaving, I think it’s just new energy and new life in the building. Sometimes it’s just time. And I think it was just kind of one of those times,” Judon said, via Dakota Randall of NESN.
While he believes it was time to move on from Belichick, Judon did say he likes that the Patriots are staying with someone (Jerod Mayo) who knows and runs a similar system – but have his own spin on it.
“And I think with the hiring of Mayo, bringing in somebody that’s been actually there for those years — that understands player perspective and coaching and how Coach Belichick actually ran the system — I think bringing in somebody like that, instead of somebody that’s outside that didn’t know at all, kind of helped us,” Judon said. “It kind of helped us because I think Mayo seen it going one way, and he’s trying to get it to go a different way.”
Judon said he feels the team has new life heading into the 2024 season.
“And so, right there, we got new life. We got new expectations,” he added. “I think when we start, we’re all gonna try and run through a wall for Mayo just because he always had our back throughout everything that we go through. We always would kind of go to talk to him, and he would understand. .. And he would come to us and just kind of talk to us.”
How will the Patriots do without Bill Belichick?