There is no love lost between the Patriots and the Jets, and much of that has to do with Bill Belichick spending just one day as the head coach in New York before resigning to build a dynasty in New England. However, it’s hard to maintain a fierce rivalry when only one team does all the winning.
When the Patriots traded Demaryius Thomas to the Jets last week, it marked the first time that Belichick ever made a trade with his former team. On Tuesday, Belichick admitted that there was a time period when the deal would have never been possible.
Bill Belichick on making a trade (Demaryius Thomas) with the Jets: "There was a certain period, there's no way that trade would have happened . . . look, we'll try to help our team any way we can."
— Karen Guregian (@kguregian) September 17, 2019
Prior to the Thomas trade, the Jets were the only team in the NFL with which Belichick had never executed a trade. That is hardly a coincidence, as division rivals rarely make trades and the relationship between Belichick and the Jets was as poor as possible at one point. That is apparently no longer the case, even if the two sides still don’t like each other.
Belichick surprised some people earlier this year when he cracked a joke about his remarkably brief tenure as head coach of the Jets, and the Thomas trade is another indication that the rivalry is not as heated as it once was. The Jets only beating the Patriots two times since 2010 probably has a lot to do with that.
