Bill Belichick, Patriots mutually part ways: Full statements from Belichick, owner Robert Kraft

EDITOR'S NOTE: Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots mutually agreed to part ways on Thursday after 24 seasons and six Super Bowl championships. Below is the full text of Belichick and Kraft's statements to the media announcing the end of the Belichick era in New England.

"Good morning. I haven't seen this many cameras since we signed (Tim) Tebow."

"Robert (Kraft) and I, after a series of discussions, have mutually agreed to part ways. For me, this is a day of gratitude and celebration. I'll start with Robert and his family. So much thanks for the opportunity to be the coach here for 24 years. It's an amazing opportunity, and I received tremendous support. We had a vision of building a winner, building a championship football team here. That's exceeded my wildest dreams and expectations, the amount of success we were able to achieve together through a lot of hard work and the contributions of so many people. Very proud of that, and I will always have those great memories. I'll carry those with me the rest of my life. Of course, after Robert, thanks to the assistant coaches. I've had so many great coaches here that made my job so much easier. It's a long list, but the amount of work, preparation and diligence that they do -- every one of them -- and I say this about the players and the coaches regardless of how long they were here, how many years they were here, how many years they coached or what their position was, it was a great team effort and everybody out everything they had into it. That's why we were successful. To the coaches and the support staff, it's an amazing staff here that supported me in every way, all the scouting, all the football support people from equipment, training, security, video, operations