Nate Solder

Patriots OT Nate Solder defies Bill Belichick, announces that he's taking a day off

Published Feb. 8, 2017 8:20 p.m. ET

Brett Smiley

During the New England Patriots' championship parade on Tuesday, head coach Bill Belichick expressed great pride in his team's effort all season and during its miraculous Super Bowl LI comeback.

And then he led a somewhat awkward "no days off!" chant while hoisting the Lombardi Trophy:

https://twitter.com/PatsMilitia/status/829060705987022848

Well, left tackle Nate Solder isn't buying it. The 6-foot-8, 325-pound tackle is giving those knees a rest for a day:

https://twitter.com/soldernate/status/829294169462038532

There's better than a good chance that Belichick himself is not taking a day off. At a news conference Monday he already lamented that the rest of the league has had a head start preparing for the 2017 NFL Draft and next season in general:

"As of today, and as great as today feels and as great as today is, in all honesty we're five weeks behind in the 2017 season to most teams in the league. Fortunately we have a great personnel staff. ... Look, in a couple weeks we're going to be looking at the Combine, obviously the draft, all-star games have already occurred, and in a month we're into free agency, not to mention all the internal Patriots players (whose) contracts are up and we're going to have to work with in some form or fashion like every team in the league does."

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Nate Solder

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