"Tom is an iconic figure in this organization," Belichick said. "No one respects Tom more than I do. I respect all the other players and the other coaches in this organization, too. I think that everybody that is part of it is an important part of it. And I want to give the proper attention, communication and detail and thought into my input into those decisions. But any decisions made, it's not an individual decision. There are other people involved. So there has to be some type of communication, understanding, agreement, whatever you want to call it. It's not a one-way street. I hope you can understand that. One person can't just decide what everybody else is gonna do. One player's not under contract. We have a lot of players who aren't under contract."