Brown Bag it, Baby
Bill Belichick was not a happy camper after losing star tight end Rob Gronkowski to a knee injury. The New England Patriots coach just stared down Cleveland Browns safety TJ Ward for hitting Gronk low in the third quarter on Sunday. The hit likely caused the tight end to suffer a torn ACL.
Cross the hoodie, prepare to die.
GIF via The Nosebleeds
Bill Belichick is not much of a trash talker. Players and coaches around the NFL love to take shots at the New England Patriots, but Belichick rarely ever responds and demands that his players hold their tongues as well. On Wednesday morning, the five-time Super Bowl champion threw the first punch.
While speaking to reporters about his team’s next opponent, Belichick was asked if he still feels a connection to the Cleveland Browns organization, where he spent five seasons as a head coach from 1991-1995. He voluntarily gave everyone a quote worth printing, which is a very rare occurrence.
“I was there for five years,” Belichick said, via Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald. “It was five important years in my life, for myself, my family and all that. Obviously, we’ve all moved on, and I have a job to do here and that’s where my loyalty is, is to Robert (Kraft), the Patriots organization and this football team. So it’s no different than how I feel, honestly, about the Colts, or the Lions or the Broncos. I feel differently about the Jets. We won’t put them in that category.”
For what it’s worth, the Jets’ hatred for Belichick runs much deeper than his hatred for them. The 61-year-old was set to become the next head coach of the Jets in 2000 before changing his mind at the last second and heading to New England. I’d be shocked if Rex Ryan resists the opportunity to respond to Belichick later this week.
The New England Patriots have countless pre-snap play calls with dozens of different names. Like many of the game’s great quarterbacks, Tom Brady is given the liberty to change the play or call out protections as he sees fit. He does this quite often. The question many people are wondering heading into the Thanksgiving holiday is this — do the Patriots have a play call named after Bill Belichick’s girlfriend?
In this video on NFL.com, you can barely make out one of Brady’s teammates saying “cougar, cougar” just before the ball is snapped and thrown to Rob Gronkowski for a 6-yard touchdown. After the player appears to say “cougar,” Brady can clearly be heard yelling “Linda!” Belichick’s girlfriend, as many of you know, is the lovely Linda Holliday. She was recently asked about the play.
“Well, since it was obviously a good call and a well-executed play, I’ll take a tiny bit of credit — but only for a well-named play,” Holliday told the Boston Herald’s Inside Track. “Seriously, the whole team played hard and we all couldn’t be happier, right?!?”
Hey, she didn’t deny it. Urban Dictionary defines a cougar as “a 35+ year old female who is on the ‘hunt’ for a much younger, energetic, willing-to-do-anything male.” Bill Belichick is older than Holliday and he’s certainly not energetic. But is he willing to do anything? Did you see what he did in overtime the other night against the Denver Broncos? I think that answers that question.
Had the Denver Broncos defeated the New England Patriots in overtime on Sunday night, Bill Belichick would still be getting crucified on every major sports network in the country. How can you justify giving the ball to Peyton Manning when a touchdown ends the game? Belichick, who has always done things a bit differently, took the wind.
The wind was blowing from one side of the field to the other at about 20-30 mph throughout the entire game. It was obviously a factor with downfield throws and in the kicking game, so Belichick decided to instill faith in his defense. Even they were surprised.
“We all looked at each other like he was crazy — then we all asked again and again and again,” offensive lineman Logan Mankins told Comcast SportsNet’s Postgame Live, via CSNNE.com. “And we just wanted to make sure we were doing exactly what he wanted. We were just making sure — you never want to be that bonehead out there that, your coach tells you you want the ball and we want to kick it.”
Defensive back Devin McCourty shared similar thoughts.
“Bill’s a genius,” McCourty said. “Even the captains were like, ‘Really? Defer?’ He wanted to take the wind. Obviously that was the best call.”
Manning, who has a reputation for struggling in cold weather, threw a number of wobbly passes throughout the night. He finished the game with 19 completions on 36 pass attempts and just 150 yards. He also threw an interception while the Broncos were facing the wind.
“The wind, it was a strong wind,” Belichick explained, per ESPNBoston.com. “We just had to keep them out of the end zone, obviously. I just felt like the wind would be an advantage if we could keep them out of the end zone on that first drive. We were able to do that. The wind was significant in the game, it was definitely significant.”
One would assume the NFL overtime rules make it so the team that wins the coin toss will take the ball 100% of the time. Is anyone surprised that Belichick broke that trend? We certainly aren’t.
Here’s a little-known fact about Bill Belichick — dude loves Halloween. No, seriously. The New England Patriots coach may seem like one of the most boring and intimidating men in sports, but he loves to cut loose and have a good time come October. We learned this several years ago during a segment on NFL Network’s “A Football Life” documentary, during which The Hoodie told Randy Moss he’d be honored to attend the team’s Halloween party.
That year, Belichick dressed as a pirate. That must be his costume of choice, because Belichick broke it out once again this year with the lovely Linda Holliday. Have you ever seen the legendary coach smile like that? How about like this?
The parents are absolutely killing it this year with Halloween costumes. For some of you, the whole kids dressing up as coaches thing may be getting old. That’s understandable, but for whatever reason these costumes keep making me laugh. The latest is baby Bill Belichick.
Earlier this week, we showed you the little killed who nailed the Kliff Kingsbury look with the gelled hair, five o’clock shadow and Wayfarer sunglasses. After that, our attention turned to baby Andy Reid and his hilarious mustache. Now, we have baby Belichick complete with a tiny hooded sweatshirt and cut-off sleeves.
Keep them coming, folks. It’s not even Halloween yet, and we’re already off to a phenomenal start with this year’s costumes.
Photo via @AndrewJTomasi
H/T Sporting News via SI Hot Clicks
Rex Ryan responded on Wednesday to Bill Belichick, who took a parting shot at the New York Jets over the controversial push play from Sunday’s game.
The Jets beat the New England Patriots 30-27 in overtime after getting a second chance at a field goal thanks to a new, uncommon unsportsmanlike conduct penalty being called on the Pats. But as Steve DelVecchio pointed out on Monday, it looked like the Jets did the same thing earlier in the game without being penalized. Belichick referred to that during a media conference call on Tuesday.
“Well, I mean, since they were using the play themselves, I don’t even know about all that,” Belichick said. “But basically we’re just moving on here.”
Ryan wasn’t about to let that slip by. The Jets coach hit back at Belichick for throwing around multiple excuses.
“He’s got to make up his mind,” Ryan said via the New York Daily News. “Was he aware of this thing, was it second level, all this kind of jazz, or now the story is we did it. OK, I gotcha. The fact is, we’re moving on, we earned that victory, plain and simple and we’re focused on Cincinnati now.”
In addition to accusing the Jets of doing the same thing earlier in the game, Belichick initially questioned the interpretation of the actual rule. Belichick said at first that he thought the push had to come from the second level of the defense in order to be considered a penalty. That’s to what Rex was referring when he mentioned “second level.”
Maybe the Patriots violated the new rule on that play, but it seemed like a crappy way to determine a game. And if referees are going to start calling this penalty, they need to do it equally at all points throughout the game.
