Do New England Fans Still Trust Bill Belicheck?

That's the question posed for . Glenn Stout, Leigh Montville, Rodney Harrison, are Bill Littlefield, are among those with answers.

Here's Stout:

He is a very good and successful football coach who over the past few years has been revealed to be a thoroughly average human being, one not immune to cheating on the field (see Spygate) or off it (see his divorce), and, given Aaron Hernandez’s arrest on charges of murder, one whose ability to judge or build character is apparently not all that special. He didn’t help himself by remaining on an overseas vacation when Hernandez was arrested, then delivering his only public statements on the matter through the public relations sieve of a tightly managed press conference, deflecting most substantive questions behind the excuse of the “ongoing judicial process” and never even mentioning Odin Lloyd, the murder victim, by name.

That is his problem moving forward. For all his successes, Belichick’s ties to New England are oddly emotionless and remote. He doesn’t do warm and fuzzy and has left community outreach to his owner, Robert Kraft, and players like Tom Brady. From his postgame press conferences to his investments in Nantucket real estate, Belichick’s connections to the region seem thoroughly transactional. He could be anywhere.

[Photo Credit: Emily Berl via MPD]