The football world woke up to some shocking and sobering news on Wednesday morning. Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, serving a life sentence after a murder conviction, committed suicide by hanging himself in a prison cell.
As players, fans and others around the NFL world attempt to understand what exactly happened, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick had some rather deep thoughts about his former player.
“Tragedy. Every piece of it, tragic. Found hung in cell,” the coach said, via Jay Glazer of Fox Sports. “Wasting a blessed life is tragic. Murder Is tragic, suicide is tragic.”
Belichick coached Hernandez throughout his entire football career, from 2010-12. Needless to say, he had a personal relationship with the now deceased convicted murderer. That led to these uncharacteristically poignant words from the Super Bowl winning head coach.
Hernandez’s suicide comes less than a week after he was acquitted on double murder charges. It also came with his defense team planning an appeal on the original conviction stemming from the murder of Odin Lloyd.
There’s surely more that will will come out of this in the next few days. But Belichick’s premise that the entire thing is tragic rings true.