Bill Belichick shares thoughts on supporting player amid social media backlash
New England Patriots running back Damien Harris has faced a lot of criticism on social media in the wake of his costly late-game fumble against the Miami Dolphins last week. Bill Belichick is notoriously ignorant when it comes to all things Twitter and the like, and the coach thinks his players would benefit from sharing the same mindset.
Harris fumbled in the red zone with minutes left in New England’s 17-16 loss. Belichick was asked on Friday about that crucial mistake and if he has any thoughts on players receiving social media backlash for blunders. You won’t be surprised by his response.
Words of wisdom…. pic.twitter.com/dMwJqTUCPt
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 17, 2021
“I don’t really know or care anything about social media. I don’t even know what’s out there or isn’t out there, that’s irrelevant to me,” Belichick said. “It doesn’t matter. We played football before there was social media and it didn’t matter then, either.”
As for Harris’ fumble, Belichick said one mistake does not determine the outcome of a game.
“We all make mistakes. We can make a mistake at the beginning of the game, we can make a mistake at the end of the game,” the coach added. “Sometimes that gets magnified because of the timing of it, but there are other things that could have happened at different points of the game that would have had just as big or maybe even a bigger effect on the game.”
Belichick has famously mocked social media platforms in the past. There have been times where you’d swear he has never even used a cell phone or computer, but he probably plays that up. What we do believe is that he considers social media to be useless and a distraction. He’s certainly not alone with that.
