SportsCenter & OTL Bringing Back Spygate (live, 9AM)
- Thread starter Lose Remerswaal
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Sounds like the Belichick letter to Trump was actually a big deal to many players and certainly didn't go over well with many, including Flo.
Interesting that Wickersham (or ESPN) says nothing about Belichick's refusing the award in January.
I'd love to know who Wickersham's sources for all the stuff he writes were.
And of course it wouldn't surprise me that if you look into ANY organization that's been this successful for 20 years, that there are going to be clashing egos and personalities.
What's amazing isn't that they rubbed each other the wrong way from time to time. What's amazing is that, despite that, they managed to stay together for 20 years and win six frigging Super Bowls. That's an unbelievable accomplishment, especially if they had times when they were at each other's throats.
And of course it wouldn't surprise me that if you look into ANY organization that's been this successful for 20 years, that there are going to be clashing egos and personalities.
What's amazing isn't that they rubbed each other the wrong way from time to time. What's amazing is that, despite that, they managed to stay together for 20 years and win six frigging Super Bowls. That's an unbelievable accomplishment, especially if they had times when they were at each other's throats.
This is so fucking stupid and missing the point of what makes the Pats run and BB great...any idiot can win with a stacked roster.
It is what happens as your players get old, and less talented because you are drafting lower in the draft and have less cap space. The number of people who do not seem to understand what makes the Pats and BB great is mind-boggling.
Exactly. It's back to the Eagles' "we have fun" idea. Yes, during NE's amazing 20-year run, they won it all 6 times, meaning that other teams won it 14 times - more than twice as much as NE won it.
OBVIOUSLY you can win a Super Bowl in a different way than they do it in New England. But how many organizations enjoy the sustained success that New England has?
ZERO.
The only comparable teams are SF and Dallas and Pittsburgh and maybe early GB teams, but none of those had the salary cap to hamper them. And even then, the Pats outdid all of them.
So yeah, you can win with fun-loving Pete Carroll and an all-time great defense. But how many titles did they win? One. Yeah, you can win with drunk Bob Irsay and Peyton Manning. But how many titles did Indy win? One. Yeah, you can win by "having fun" in Philly. But how many titles did they win? One. Yeah, you can win with Aaron "who wishes he was the GOAT" Rodgers at QB. But how many titles did they win? One.
As Captain America would say...I can do this all day.
In fairness, that may very well be in the book. I don’t think he wrote this article, which is essentially a collection of PowerPoint-style bullets describing certain content from the book.
Yeah, I am sure Kraft thinks Belichick is an asshole for about 30 seconds every day until he looks up the current value of his franchise.
Even us fans probably have the same thought a couple times a week. Given how much BB and Kraft see of each other, Kraft probably has the thought 100x more often. But then like you say, he forgets it because so many other things trump BB being an asshole.
This part is dumb. Just because Arians won last year does not make the way BB works look "silly". That's just stupid af.
Its a weird thing to put in the book because even as I read it I thought it was clearly Kraft making a joke. I can definitely see him mock-rolling his eyes and joking about how miserable Belichick always is.
Bill not meeting Brady in person seems like a shitty move, but this all went down in March of 2020. The early days of the pandemic when everything was shut down. For all we know, Bill was down in Nantucket or had traveled elsewhere and it was literally tough to get on a plane and meet somewhere on short notice. Or he was uncomfortable with meeting in person due to the virus. Who knows.
He was in Nantucket and Brady was either in Boston or NYC. I believe he signed his contract at his apartment in NYC. So yeah, this is all for clicks. It's so predictable this week that stuff like this is coming out.
He drove to Kraft’s house outside of Boston to tell him in-person he was leaving, which was a day or two before he announced he was signing with Tampa. I don’t think this was some big orchestrated meeting that Bill blew off.
Why should Bill meet with him anyways to congratulate him on….leaving? I wouldn’t expect Tom to have initiated an in-person meeting, either.
This is a huge nightmare for the organization. It threatens to undo all of the immense goodwill the Patriots and Belichick have built up with non-New England fans over the years.
As a niners fan I will note that they absolutely did have a salary cap, it just didn't hamper them because Carmen Policy and DeBartolo decided to just ignore it.
This proves beyond doubt that BB is an asshole, so all six of those championships get an asterisk.
This is Wickersham's 80s hair metal band at a small county fair moment. There is no denying that someone would drive all the way from upstate NY to see them but the crowds have to thin out at some point.
As long as Wickersham can still sell tickets, he'll still put on shows
What’s interesting is he seems to be held in very high esteem by other reporters, like he’s pulling off Woodward/Bernstein type crack investigative reporting of the Pats. My impression is he puts a lot of time an effort into finding people within the Pats orbit to talk to, but my nagging suspicion is that he can’t get close enough to TB, BB, or RK to really get anywhere worth going.
Like some of the anecdotes summarized in the ESPN article - such as the alleged BOB death by cop attempt to get the Pats job since he expected Bill to be pushed out, or Bill bear hugging Goodell - seem outrageous to the point where it’s hard to believe they were not reported on contemporaneously or close to it. And the others are inconsequential, if appropriate for Page Six.
Hey, how about that for a title, ‘(Page) Six Lombardis: The Re-Told Truth of Belichick, Brady, and the Patriots.’
Like some of the anecdotes summarized in the ESPN article - such as the alleged BOB death by cop attempt to get the Pats job since he expected Bill to be pushed out, or Bill bear hugging Goodell - seem outrageous to the point where it’s hard to believe they were not reported on contemporaneously or close to it. And the others are inconsequential, if appropriate for Page Six.
Hey, how about that for a title, ‘(Page) Six Lombardis: The Re-Told Truth of Belichick, Brady, and the Patriots.’
This is how i see it as well. Even the title--"It's Better to Be Feared"--is over the top and ... off. Has this organization rubbed out people who disagreed with them or went against "company policy"? All things considered, players seem to like Bill. Fear seems like more of a Mike Tomlin thing or something you saw with the Ravens than Belichick and Kraft (who is sort of a mensch-type who thinks he's a little too wonderful).
And yet ... Wickersham does seem to have the respect of other reporters, which makes you wonder what's going on.
I'm not sure I believe anything this guy writes, but even if Kraft did say that, it sounds like something he might have said tongue in cheek (even if he does think he's an asshole, he didn't get rich by going around talking about key employees behind their backs).
They are next door neighbors. Kraft wanted to buy the land from the school next door , the town wouldn't let him, but they let Brady buy it. I would not be surprised if the party that bought it from Brady is using Kraft's money to do so
Any idea on Felger's ratings? I no longer live in the NE area, but I can't imagine ever wanting to watch that at any time. I have to think that it's on only at Planet Fitness and TGI Friday's.
Not sure anyone cares but if interested Wickersham is going to be on Rich Eisen's show in about 3 minutes.
He was on with Curran the other day. He spouts out these half truths and rumors from 2nd/3rd hand sources like they are hard facts.
I'll give Wickersham this: dude couldn't have set a better release date for his book, he's playing this the way he needed to play it.
He got rich by marrying someone rich. (Obviously he built up the business a lot, i'm kidding, mostly).
BB is a big time asshole and at some point he won't be good enough at the scheming/player acquisition to get away with that persona. But man, a 20 year run at the heigh of a sport (helped by an increidble QB of course) is pretty amazing.
I'm not at all convinced that he is outside the 50th percentile point among NFL coaches with regards to the bolded. Several reporters have said that a lot of his press conference personality is performative.
This almost gets into a semantic debate. I do think he's particularly blunt and direct (the whole that's a shitty throw, someone from foxboro high could do that routine) in world where a lot of coaches are pumping up their players but in the demanding world he lives in is he particularly tough relative to his peer group? I doubt it.
I don't really buy the BB is an asshole take. Full disclosure - I think BB is one of the best leaders around. Blunt, practical and is in a position where he often is giving bad news (performance, contracts, roster cuts, etc), but there are many, many documented stories of the BB that we don't see at weekly pressers. For example, here's what Randy had to say at his HOF induction:
"Last but not least – I’m not going to forget about you. Bill Belichick, I’m not going to forget about you. I want to thank you for being a friend when it wasn’t always about football. You showed me how much I love the game, you challenged me every day to go out there and be great. You challenged me to be great, coach, and I’m sorry we did not bring it home."
That doesn't sound like an asshole to me. Especially considering how Randy's stay in NE ended.
"Last but not least – I’m not going to forget about you. Bill Belichick, I’m not going to forget about you. I want to thank you for being a friend when it wasn’t always about football. You showed me how much I love the game, you challenged me every day to go out there and be great. You challenged me to be great, coach, and I’m sorry we did not bring it home."
That doesn't sound like an asshole to me. Especially considering how Randy's stay in NE ended.
Putting BB into either an 'a-hole' or 'not a-hole' box is kinda silly. People are complicated.
Right, it's definitely not binary but honestly, he's not an A-hole and not even on that end of the spectrum. Belichick reminds of a good engineer. He's practical, doesn't beat around the bush, and doesn't tolerate stupid questions. His lack of bedside manner is why people may peg him as an A-hole, but if you understand his character you'll know he's likely on the opposite of an A-hole. Granted, this is entirely an opinion topic so don't @ me lol
It is really notable how much effort Belichick puts into not nuking relationships, not taking offenses personally, etc. He definitely knows that he doesn't naturally radiate warmth and thus puts concerted effort into making sure he treats his people right.