New England Patriots Captain Matthew Slater: 'Faith' in Bill Belichick Despite Indianapolis Colts Loss

New England Patriots team captain Matthew Slater cited Bill Belichick as a main reason for his return for a 16th season in the NFL. Accordingly, he is supporting his coach during the team's darkest hour.

With the New England Patriots 2023 season seemingly lost in a pile of unsalvageable wreckage, their longest-tenured team captain remains intent on lending his vote of confidence for head coach Bill Belichick — the only Patriot who has called Gillette Stadium home for a longer period of time. 

Having fallen to 2-8 with a 10-6 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Frankfurt, Germany on Sunday morning, questions surrounding Belichick's future with the team have risen more frequently than bubbles in a carbonated beverage. Still, Patriots special teams ace Matthew Slater was careful to deflect the biggest share of blame away from New England's legendary head coach. 

“I have as much faith in Coach Belichick as I’ve ever had," Slater said at the Frankfurt Stadium postgame podium. "There's no reason to be doubting who he is as a leader and a coach for this football team. The struggles that we've had on the field this year are due to us and our inability to execute. It’s got nothing to do with Coach Belichick.”

Having spent his entire 16-year career with New England, Slater has become one of the NFL’s most respected players, both on and off the field. In fact, he is often considered the standard to which his teammates (and even his coaches) hold themselves accountable. A 13-time team captain, he has earned two first-team All-Pro selections (2016, 2019), three second team All-Pro (2017, 2020, 2021) and 10 Pro Bowl nods, the most by a special teamer in NFL history.

For all of his on-field success, the argument can be made that Slater is equally respected off the field. The Pats captain takes great pride in his role as a mentor for many of the team’s younger players — not only leading them throughout the game, but also offering his wisdom and advice away from it.

As such, his opinion is neither to be ignored, nor simply brushed aside as lip-service. 

In fact, Slater's reverence and trust in his head coach is such that it had an impact on his decision to return for another season in New England. A chance encounter in February 2022 was all he needed to realize that Belichick wanted him back in the Foxboro fold.

“I bumped into him outside the weight room,” Slater told Steve Buckley of The Athletic earlier this year. “I was going out, he was coming. I told him I felt like I wanted to come back and play. And it was very well received. He was excited that I felt that way.

“If Bill had said, ‘OK, it’s time (to retire),’ that would have removed all doubt about playing. But he wanted me back. The conversation was all of two minutes, maybe three minutes.”

In kind, the relationship between Slater and Belichick continues to be forged in mutual respect. It should come as no surprise that he urged Patriots fans to place greater trust in New England's coaches and players before buying into the convenient narrative being gleefully force-fed to the multitudes both in and outside of Pats Nation. 

"I'm sure there's a lot of negativity going on around our team right now," Slater said. "You can't let people who don't know the half of what's going on inside the building impact what's going on inside the building."

New England Patriots Matthew Slater and Bill Belichick / Cred: USA Today Sports Images

Still, the harsh reality is that the Patriots will almost certainly once again be on the outside of the AFC playoff picture at the conclusion of 2023. Since their victory in Super Bowl LIII to close out the 2018 season, New England has failed to qualify for the playoffs twice. For the two seasons in which they did make the playoffs, they were quickly ousted in the Wild Card round. Following quarterback Tom Brady’s departure prior to the start of the 2020 season, the Pats are 27-34 overall.

Unsurprisingly, the blame for such inefficiencies has fallen more on the shoulders of Belichick than anyone else in the organization — with fans and media alike ferociously clamoring for the eight-time Super Bowl champion's outright firing. 

Just moments before Sunday’s kick-off, Patriots team owner Robert Kraft, appeared on NFL Network, saying that he was "really disappointed" and hoped "things would be a lot better," than the Patriots current record. Kraft also added that he was hoping for a "re-set," beginning with Sunday’s matchup with the Colts - citing the game as one he wanted to win 'badly." 

Nonetheless, as the final passes of quarterbacks Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe each sailed into the hands of Colts defenders —solidifying their loss and perhaps sealing New England's seasonal fate in the process — might Kraft be forced to take immediate action by (-GULP-) relieving Bill Belichick of his duties? 

In response, NFL Network revealed additional details on Belichick’s contract status — which had previously been reported as “lucrative,” thus complicating the prospect of the 71-year-old’s mid-season firing. According to NFL insider Ian Rapoport, Belichick’s deal is a “new contract” which puts him under New England’s control for the remainder of 2023 and all of 2024. The report further explained that Kraft was “not inclined to fire Belichick mid-season,” but would not rule out the possibility of teams trading for his services in the offseason. 

Perhaps most notably, Kraft must consider the specter of firing arguably the most-accomplished coach in NFL history. Winning six Super Bowl championships, as well as becoming a three-time Coach of the Year, are just some of the accolades which Belichick has collected. In fact, the ‘HC of the NEP’ became just the third head coach to earn 300 wins last month and is a mere 17 victories away from becoming the winningest head coach in NFL history. 

Whether Belichick will be wearing his customary Patriots hoodie when [and if] he breaks the record currently held by Don Shula, is a matter of legitimate conjecture. 

However, if you ask Matthew Slater ... Bill Belichick's fate on the NFL sidelines, as well as his future in Foxboro, seem quite clear. 

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