Less than 24 hours after downing the Jets and handing them their ninth loss of the season, the Patriots head coach handed the Jets yet another loss, clowning them, telling WEEI’s “Ordway, Merloni and Fauria” on Tuesday that the moment he resigned from the Jets is one of the “great moments” of his career.
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“One of the — not only most defining — but one of the great moments of my career,” Belichick said. “That combined with Robert [Kraft] giving me the opportunity to come here, I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
“So, that wasn’t a good situation for me, and I didn’t want to be part of it, so I wasn’t.”
Belichick has maintained that he was uncomfortable with both of the prospective Jets owners, Woody Johnson or Charles Dolan, after the death of longtime owner Leon Hess and his uncertainty surrounding the ownership situation played a big part in resigning from his post, quitting as coach just minutes before he was scheduled to be formally introduced as the new head man.
Belichick infamously scribbled “I am resigning as HC of the NYJ” on a piece of paper before the press conference.
After the retirement of Bill Parcells, alongside whom Belichick won two championships as defensive coordinator for the Giants in the ’80s, Belichick was pegged as the Jets successor. He also served as Jets DC under Parcells between 1997 and 1999.
The Patriots would trade a first-round pick for Belichick in the weeks after the resignation, while some urban legend suggests that Belichick and New England owner Robert Kraft had planned the entire ordeal.
Six Super Bowl rings later, the rest, as they say, is history.
