There’s still no love lost between Bill Belichick and the New York Jets.
The Patriots provided one of the quieter, yet more intriguing moves of the 2023 NFL Draft when they allowed the Steelers to move up three picks, from No. 17 to No. 14, to draft Georgia offensive tackle Broderick Jones, giving up only a fourth-rounder (pick No. 120) to do so.
The intriguing part of the trade comes with whom the Steelers jumped to take Jones: the New York Jets, whom Belichick is known to dislike – and many inside the league believe was trying to deliberately sabotage with the deal.
“They should have had to give up a [third-round pick] and not a four to move up there,” one NFL general manager said anonymously to The Washington Post. “Belichick did it just to f–k the Jets. He sold low because he knew the Steelers were going to take the kid the Jets wanted to take.”
It was not a secret that the Jets needed offensive line help heading into the draft, but three of the consensus top-four tackles – Ohio State’s Paris Johnson Jr., Tennessee’s Darnell Wright, and Northwestern’s Peter Skoronski – were all off the board by the 11th pick in the draft.
With the Jets picking at 15 and Pittsburgh also in need of offensive line help, Belichick perhaps saw an opportunity to move back to 17 and allow them to swoop in and take Jones – the last of the four premier tackles – from New England’s division rival one pick ahead of them.
“Bill will try to screw them over any chance he gets,” a different NFL personnel executive told The Washington Post. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”
It appeared to work as the Jets ran out much of the clock before settling for edge rusher Will McDonald IV from Iowa State.
To add insult to injury, the Patriots were able to land Oregon cornerback Christian Gonzalez at pick No. 17 – a player many believed was a top-10 talent.
The Jets addressed the offensive line in the second round, taking Wisconsin center Joe Tippmann – but they still have large question marks at both tackle spots, with Duane Brown and Mekhi Becton coming off injuries.
The tackles will have the responsibility of keeping edge rushers away from 39-year-old quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The two teams actually traded with each other later in the draft, with Belichick and the Patriots sending a sixth-rounder to the Jets to move up eight spots in the fourth round – interestingly, to select a kicker (Maryland’s Chad Ryland).
Belichick and the Jets have had a fraught relationship for much of his coaching career.
Not only has Belichick led the bitter-rival Patriots for more than two decades, but he was also originally hired to be the head coach for New York in 1999 before resigning at his introductory press conference.
He then took the job with the Patriots and has not looked back since, winning six Super Bowl championships as the Jets have only won six playoff games in that span.
It remains to be seen how much longer Belichick is going to coach the Patriots, but it appears he’s just as keen on screwing over the Jets as he has always been as he enters his 70s.
