Did Bill Belichick take shot at Jets with ‘another team’ remark?

There is no love lost between Bill Belichick and the Jets, and it appears the Patriots coach gave us a subtle reminder of that during a training camp press conference on Wednesday.

While speaking before his team’s joint practice with the Texans, Belichick was asked about his relationship with Houston defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel. The two coaches worked together for years, including with the Jets in the late 1990s. Belichick mentioned the Patriots and Giants when recapping his history with Crennel, but he referred to the Jets as “another team.”

“Well, Romeo and I started together at the Giants in special teams, so he and I coached special teams together and then we coached defensively together through 1990,” Belichick said, per Ryan Hannable of WEEI.com. “We worked at the Patriots together, then another team, and then back with the Patriots in 2001. I’ve relied on him through the years, both with our team when I worked with him, but even at times outside when we could help each other and it wasn’t a conflict in competitiveness. He’s helped me with a lot of things.”

Could that have simply been an oversight? Sure, but this is Bill Belichick we’re talking about. Almost everything he does is calculated, and we have no reason to think his “another team” remark was any different when you consider his history with the Jets.

Belichick was the head coach of the Jets for one day in 1999 before he resigned and took a job with the Patriots. That soured the relationship between the two sides, and Belichick has taken some uncharacteristic jabs at his division rival in the past. Calling the Jets “another team” was almost certainly another instance of that.