The first weekend of the NFL season for the New England Patriots did not go according to plan.
An opening week loss to the Las Vegas Raiders by a score of 20-13 showed that New England may be further away from the playoffs than many expected. Sunday’s loss, though, was not the only time that the Patriots were in the headlines over the weekend.
It began when it was revealed that legendary Patriots head coach Bill Belichick admitted to banning New England scouts from the building at the University of North Carolina. Belichick cited that he was “obviously not welcome” in New England’s facilities, so he was giving the same energy and response back.
Current Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel had a chance to respond to Belichick’s comments on his radio show Monday morning and had this to say.
“Bill came back for, to the best of my knowledge, (to) Tom’s ceremony,” Vrabel said in his weekly interview with sports radio WEEI. “So, I guess he’s welcomed back based on the fact he was there. I’ll just go by that — since his departure as the head coach here, he’s been back. I’ll leave it at that.”
There is an extremely good chance to Belichick still has hard feelings about his departure from New England after the 2022 season. It is hard to imagine that did not play any sort of role in his comments or his decisions to ban Patriots scouts from the facilities at UNC.
Bill Belichick on banning #Patriots scouts: “It’s clear I’m not welcome there at their facility. So they’re not welcome at ours. It’s pretty simple.”(via Tar Heel Tribune / YT) pic.twitter.com/AvRs5U0WyR
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) September 7, 2025
Vrabel winning multiple Super Bowls as a player under Belichick makes it easy to see why he would not have any sort of negative remarks toward the future Hall of Fame coach. There is a level of respect between the two coaches and Monday’s comments from Vrabel will likely be the end of the situation.
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