Sense of melancholy in the locker room

FOXBOROUGH — Shoved against the walls or nestled between locker stalls, the brown cardboard boxes scattered throughout the Patriots locker room this week told a story all their own. As this disappointing season neared its merciful end — one final game Sunday against the Jets — players were already packing up the memories of a year in their professional lives, the extra cleats, team-issued clothing, and other mementos tucked into any available spaces.

Such is the unique frequency to the final days of a football season that has nowhere to go but home, where players who don’t have the playoffs ahead of them remain keenly aware what the nature of this business ensures: This exact group will never be together again.

“We’ve been grinding since April,” defensive lineman Deatrich Wise Jr. said. “We hang out, we support each other in our foundation events, we have to be a family in here. That’s what makes great teams. Building that chemistry off the field is very important.

“We have special handshakes with each other and we share laughs and play Connect Four (which I always win). But we play card games and things like that. We work out together and we share laughter together.

“But every year we go through the same thing. Since ’17 when I got in the league, I realize every team is not going to be the same. I always cherish every moment.”

He is not alone. From the exhausted rookies wrapping up their first year in the league to the wizened veterans perhaps facing their last, there is a shared sense of melancholy to underscore the goodbyes, a lingering awareness of the inevitability of impending change. That’s normal life in the NFL.

But this isn’t a normal year in New England, where the feeling has been intensified by the relentless speculation over coach Bill Belichick’s job status, an undercurrent of uncertainty that is sure to bubble over in the aftermath of Sunday’s season finale.

It’s impossible to ignore how different it all feels. Try as the players might to tune it all out — and what sort of Patriots would they be if they weren’t insisting they don’t hear any of it at all? — this particular elephant is too big to ignore in any room.

There’s captain David Andrews using his postgame comments from last weekend’s loss in Buffalo to praise Belichick’s work in preparing the team. Here’s fellow veteran Matthew Slater wrapping up a Thursday interview with the passionate conclusion: “Simply stated, I’m not standing up here without Coach.” There’s breakout rookie Dema

rio Douglas perfectly toeing Belichick’s company line, saying, “We’re really just focused on the Jets right now. It’s the last week and there’s definitely been a lot done on the Jets.”

And of course here’s the man himself, with Belichick refusing any and all attempts to ponder his future in favor of focusing on the next game, the mantra that has defined his multi-decade coaching life. As he put it on “The Greg Hill Show” this week, “Whatever success I have had, I’ve tried to go about my job the same way every week — win, lose, good years, bad years, whatever they are . . . I’m committed to the team that I’m coaching right now, the players that are here. They deserve my best every day and that’s what I’m going to give them.”

But at 4-12 this season, and with but one playoff appearance since Tom Brady departed (and that one a blowout loss to the Bills), Belichick is no longer the rock-solid institution who coached the team to a record six Super Bowl titles. Between headscratching personnel moves (Chad Ryland in the fourth round?) and curious in-game decisions (benching Douglas for one fumble?) that have backfired, the 71-year-old coach’s position is undeniably rocky.

“A lot of people have been saying that,” Wise acknowledged. “I don’t really know much about that. But I do know we come here all the time playing for each other to go out there and get a win. The main goal we preach is to play hard, give it your all, and get a win.”

The focus ahead is commendable, coming from players who understand that every game is like another entry on their résumés, a performance on film that will be seen by coaches and executives across the league. For these particular Patriots, finishing strong is a matter of personal pride as well motivation to win for their coach.

“Yeah, everybody continues the same message, we’re playing for each other, we understand that in the NFL not everyone is going to be on the team next year, that this is the last game all these guys are going to be together,” quarterback Bailey Zappe said. “That’s something that’s setting in, going into this Sunday, and it’s going to have the kind of energy that we’re going to play for each other.”

Leave it to Slater, in his 16th and likely final season in the NFL, to bring the focus back to the only NFL coach he’s ever had, to highlight Belichick’s impact on him even as the questions swirl.

“It’s been transformative,” he said. “I wouldn’t have had a third of the career I’ve had without Coach.”

Without Coach. A strange thought even to contemplate, but around these Patriots, one that’s been impossible to ignore.