Belichick Overpaid Bielema to Avoid Arkansas Salary Fight, Filing Says

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A new court filing Monday in Bret Bielema’s $7 million litigation against the Razorback Foundation contains the potential bombshell that New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick thought he was overpaying, not underpaying, the former Razorbacks head coach when he worked for the Patriots in 2018-19.

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The filing reveals that several successful coaches had joined Belichick’s staff for salaries as low as $15,000—far lower than Bielema’s six-figure annual wages.

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In other words, at least as portrayed by Mars, Bielema and Cornrich believed that all of the money Bielema earned with the Patriots would reduce the amount owed by the Foundation and that none of it would count as excluded income (i.e., money Bielema keeps). An apparent contract drafting error or oversight led to the carve-out being worded more expansively than had been negotiated.

To support this argument, the answer notes that Bielema set up an account at Santander Bank in Foxboro, Massachusetts, for what Mars describes as “the purpose of segregating his income from the Patriots.” This decision, Mars maintains, is consistent with Bielema believing the money would go to the Foundation. If Bielema thought the money was his to keep, he presumably wouldn’t have bothered to create a new bank account for that specific source of income.

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