Training camp was a busy time for Bill Belichick. Not only did the former New England Patriots head coach have to get his team ready for the season, but he also dealt with disgruntled players and re-negotiated contracts as the de facto general manager.
Many of those players held out until they received their desired contract, but the 2020 NFL collective bargaining agreement required teams to fine players $50,000 per day for training camp absences. That has resulted in players reporting to camp but being limited or non-participants in practice, otherwise known as "holding in."
With several players across the league in the midst of "hold-ins," Belichick was asked on ESPN's The Pat McAfee Show to explain how he handled these situations over the years. The six-time Super Bowl champion used ex-Pats linebacker Matthew Judon's 2023 hold-in as an example.
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"Judon did this last year. He came to training camp and effectively didn't practice, but Matt was going to play last year and so he worked and trained hard on his own until we were able to resolve the contract," Belichick said. "My position was, 'We're not going to negotiate with you if you're not working and you're not here, so if you leave then that's a really bad precedent. ... So come here, work hard, we'll talk to you, let's see if we can make it work.'
"What we did with Matt is something that we did with (Rob) Gronkowski, we did it with Julian (Edelman), where if there was a gap between where they were and where they thought they should make and if we thought that was reasonable, then we'd put it in incentives."
Belichick and the Patriots raised Judon's guaranteed money from $2 million to $14 million. The four-time Pro Bowler played four games before suffering a season-ending biceps injury.
"The market was around 20 (million), he was somewhere around 15. I forget the exact numbers. We gave him incentives to call it 19," Belichick added. "So if he had the same year he had in '21 and '22, he would've made the 19. Unfortunately, he got hurt and so the whole thing was a moot point, but the point is that I think you try to find a way to compromise. Sometimes, incentives or maybe it's a new contract."
Belichick preferred to wait until the final year of a player's contract to re-negotiate because of the precedent negotiating with two years remaining would set.
"I think Matt's age last year, the new contract plus he had two years to go on his contract, so that's another one," he said. "We didn't re-negotiate with (Stephon) Gilmore with two years to go on his contract, we didn't re-negotiate with Judon with two years to go on his contract.
"I think when you start re-negotiating with two years to go, again, you can have a 15-man parade coming in there with two years to go that want to re-negotiate. So our position was always do it the last year. If it was two years, then we'd try to find another solution rather than re-negotiate so we didn't have the two-year precedent.
Since Judon's restructured deal didn't add any years, he enters the 2024 campaign on an expiring contract. The 32-year-old was a "hold-in" at training camp again, this time looking for a raise from $6.5 million. The new Patriots regime wouldn't budge, resulting in Judon being traded to the Atlanta Falcons for a 2025 third-round draft pick.
Belichick hasn't had to deal with holdouts or hold-ins this summer. The future Hall of Famer has focused on his multiple television gigs since his 24-year Patriots tenure ended after the 2023 season. We likely haven't seen the last of him on the sidelines, however, as he reportedly still wants to coach -- at least long enough to surpass Don Shula on the all-time wins list.
