The future of New England Patriots head coach and general manager Bill Belichick seems to be in question concurrent with the team’s struggles on the field. Currently holding a 3-10 record, the Patriots are outside of the playoff picture and have utilized various quarterbacks since Tom Brady left the organization to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Belichick has been a significant talking point in the Boston marketplace and beyond, serving as a driving topic throughout Friday’s edition of The Greg Hill Show on WEEI with Greg Hill, Jermaine Wiggins, Courtney Cox and Chris Curtis.
Show hosts, producers, contributors, and callers have all voiced their opinions during the year about Belichick and whether or not he should be fired by the team. Over the weekend, NBC Sports Boston insider Tom E. Curran reported that following the team’s 10-6 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Frankfurt, Germany, team owner Robert Kraft had decided to relieve Belichick of his duties at the end of the season.
On the most recent edition of ESPN College GameDay outside of Gillette Stadium, analyst Pat McAfee questioned Kraft about Belichick, to which he gave an ambiguous response related to winning. McAfee then said that he would not want to be in Kraft’s position and that everyone knew what was about to happen. After backlash towards his comments, McAfee clarified what he said on his eponymous program, The Pat McAfee Show, on Monday afternoon. Curran apparently knew this information after the Frankfurt game and did not divulge it to the public until after McAfee’s line of questioning.
Interacting with a caller on the program who began his comments by saying that the WEEI morning show is better than its predecessor, Dennis and Callahan, during its prime, he expressed that he thinks the sentiment of Patriots players is that Belichick is losing his mind. In fact, he went on to say that they could be questioning how he was ever able to win six Super Bowl championships. The caller then asked why Curran ostensibly chose to refrain from reporting information that the football world on which the football world was awaiting clarity.
“Do you honestly think that Curran is not getting this information from a reliable source?,” the caller asked the program.
“That’s not what I said,” replied Curtis. “I said I questioned sitting on the biggest story you’ll ever have, especially when the vultures are all circling the Patriots waiting to get that scoop.”
The caller was not sure if Curran perhaps was working to gain additional information from his source to make sure. Curtis presumed that there is no more information to obtain in this case since it centers around whether or not Belichick is going to be fired from the job. As an example, he brought up how when the Patriots cut quarterback Cam Newton, there was no additional story surrounding it because the roster move itself encompassed the pertinent information.
“If the news is that they’re going to fire Bill Belichick, then they’re going to fire Bill Belichick and Bill Belichick knows about it,” Curtis said. “There’s no way that Robert Kraft told Tom Curran and not Bill Belichick.”
Hosting in sports talk radio, Jermaine Wiggins knows that some of the on-air personalities are privy to information from inside sources; however, they do not choose to publicize all of what they know because of uncertainty regarding its veracity. Jermaine Wiggins expressed that reporters always go with the information when they have their sources and explained his perspective further.
“You know how much stuff I bet all of us have that we heard through the grapevine about certain things and we just sit on it?,” Jermaine Wiggins said. “I’m not talking about from social media; I’m talking about people we know and we’re like, ‘You know what – I’m not going to say that because I’m not 100% sure and let somebody else break it.’”
“For a long time, we sat on the individual who plays professional sports in this city who had an unfortunate breakup with his significant other and then had a party,” co-host Greg Hill added, “and then he served a signature summer drink at that party which was called, ‘Single [Boy] Swag.’”
