For 20+ years, Bill Belichick has had final say over his roster.

Presumably, that’s been the case this season too, including on trade deadline day Tuesday. The Patriots chose to stand pat and not part with any of their expiring contracts for draft picks, instead taking the George Costanza route ‘going down with the ship.’

But, has the change with Belichick’s full control of the roster already began? Fans have been clamoring for Bill the GM to have responsibilities taken away or at least monitored more, particularly heading into next year’s draft (which is really just five months away). With some strange answers on Wednesday when pressed about the lack of activity on Tuesday, Belichick may have hinted that things really are starting to change sooner than we all anticipated.

“We’re getting ready for Washington,” Belichick said when first asked about his activity or lack thereof on Tuesday. “Yeah, again, we talked about this the other day – the personnel department, coaching department. We talked about that last week, just another day of that,” was the next response when pushed on it a little more from NBC Sports Boston’s Phil Perry.

“If there was anything to talk about, we talked about it. If there wasn’t anything to talk about, then I worked on Washington. Personnel people worked on personnel things.”

Things then got testy a few minutes later between Belichick and Perry when he went back to try and gain more clarification of what Belichick’s role was in discussions throughout the deadline.

“This is the same thing we talked about. We’ve talked about this 50 times. If they have something they think I need to know about, then we talk about it. If I have a personnel situation that I think they need to know about, I tell them about it and then they look into it. It’s the same thing I’ve said the last 50 times we’ve talked about this,” Belichick snapped back.

“We work together when there’s something to work together on. When there isn’t something to work together on, then I coach, they do personnel…if there’s something we need to talk about, then we talk about it. If there isn’t something to talk about, we won’t just sit there and stare at each other all day. We both have other stuff to do, not both, but their department, the coaching department – there’s other things going on. We’re not just going to sit there and stare at each other and see if the phone’s going to ring or there’s going to be something bold on the news, or whatever. We have stuff to do.”

So, was Belichick just waiting for Matt Groh to do all the work yesterday? Was Groh limited in what he could look for because he knew Belichick wasn’t really all too eager to move pieces? Is Groh going to be the guy making picks in April? Is Bill?

At 2-6 and probably no more than a three-to-five win team this year, the questions swirling around who will be making decisions long term for the Patriots are only going to intensify. Robert Kraft has a decision to make and it needs to be made sooner rather than later.

But, after Wednesday’s awkward exchange and overall feeling in the room, maybe the change is already starting to take shape at 1 Patriot Place…