FOXBOROUGH, Mass — Bill Belichick followed Pete Carroll as head coach of the New England Patriots, and they are the only two coaches that Robert Kraft has hired as the franchise’s owner.

Carroll took a Super Bowl team and regressed for three years, earning a firing that led to his move to the college ranks at Southern Cal and now back in the NFL with the Seahawks.

The two men have very different styles, and had very different tenures in New England. And, yet, both own Super Bowl rings and will battle for another in Super Bowl XLIX.

And despite the fact that Belichick and Carroll would seem like an odd couple, the current New England head coach has plenty of praise and respect for his predecessor.

“I think Pete’s a great football coach. His record speaks for itself. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Pete. He believes what he believes in. I think that they kind of have their way of doing things, but it works very well and Pete’s consistent, he’s got a consistent message,” Belichick said.

“I think he’s coached pretty much the same type of – he has the same type of style and similar type of coaching personality and scheme and just kind of the whole thing for many years now. It’s well over 20 years that I’ve coached against him and known him through our different competitions in the National Football League. Then in college when he was at USC, you saw more of that and he had tremendous success there.

“Pete’s a good friend. I sit down and talked with him on many occasions and I really respect what he does (and) how he does it. His players play hard, they play well and he has a really resilient team with a lot of energy. I think that he’s done a tremendous job in Seattle, as he did at SC and he’s a really good football coach, and they have a really good team. I like Pete; like him a lot.”