You may not remember this, but one day a few years ago Bill Belichick and I smoked weed together and got Idaho sky high on a car ride across the U.S. from Boston to the West Coast. This occurred while I, Sammy Sportface, was riding with Bill and Patriots owner Robert Kraft to Seattle because they were trying to pull back Tom Brady, who had just left the team in a huff and bolted towards Seattle for new football opportunities. They realized even then that letting him go was a massive mistake.
By happenstance during that nationwide cruise, we saw an NFL runningback-looking vagabond along the side of the highway amid the tumbleweeds in Somewhere, Idaho and wouldn’t you know it was, naturally, Ricky Reefer Williams, whom we picked up. Minutes after entering the car, Ricky passed around the fully-packed bone. Bill got stoned and so did I, Ricky, Kraft and Roger Goodell, who hopped along with the ride because he didn’t have much to do. You see we were then living through quite period in world history. The Covid-19 pandemic had just begun and the world began social distancing. What I remember most about that delightful day was Belichick Sharing Tips with Kraft and Goodell on Social Distancing (ngscsports.com).
“I’ve been perfecting the art of social distancing my whole life. The key is to never be too close to anyone physically – or emotionally for that matter. You stay far apart from people at all times. You don’t give off any warm vibes. When you cut guys, you need to make sure you’re behind your desk and the player is at least 20 feet away so you can rudely shout at him “hey, dude, you’re cut, get out of my office.’ Never get close. Never touch. Never be nice. Be anti-social. Don’t talk to people at parties. If you can avoid it, don’t go to parties. Don’t go to large gatherings. Don’t go to small gatherings. Don’t go anywhere where there are people unless you absolutely have to.”
Social distancing aside, losing Brady was going to make him less successful and revered as we have all found out.
Around this time I read a book about the Belichick/Brady successful run titled Dynasty. I found out it was – a ha — Belichick who wanted to release the superhuman quarterback in 2017 three years before he actually left.
Kraft was the one who managed to keep the disgruntled Brady around a few more years despite the QB feeling betrayed after working harder than anyone in human history to win six Super Bowls for Belichick.
Looking back on that car ride and the legendary losing Belichick has suffered through since Brady bolted, it’s no wonder Belichick was willing to get stoned because he knew his bull-headedness and Earth-sized ego to dump Brady was a catastrophically bone-headed decision. You can imagine his state of mind: Why not get high, lose yourself in the carelessness of being baked, forget the decisions you regret making.
Throughout the dynastic Patriots run, he got a thrill cutting star players and it usually worked. Except not with Brady. Never should have let him go.
Together the two of them would have probably won another Super Bowl or two and we wouldn’t have what we have now with people believing Brady was the primary reason for the Patriots success which you know eats at Belichick’s soul and will throughout his eternal experience.
Belichick is an interesting cat. You know all about his mumbling fests during press conferences telling basically nothing to reporters and belittling them week after week, being utterly unhelpful to them. It was slightly amusing and cringeworthy simultaneously.
But it was also creepily entertaining when every once in awhile usually on Friday for some inexplicable reason Bill would field some reporter’s question and go on a Shakespearean soliloquy and analytical breakdown so multi-layered, complex, laborious, time-sucking and tedious that it’s actually high art. He did this one Friday when asked about whether NFL teams should get rid of specialist long snappers for punts and get some other players to do them to save a roster spot. Touched in Bill’s hot zone, he went off on an endless breakdown here:
But the finer nuances of punting are trivial compared with what’s before us now the likelihood that Bill will be relieved of his job, or resign, tomorrow morning and his Patriots journey to the Promised Land down to the AFC East basement this year are ending ignominiously.
So where is Bill going to go next? Out on his Nantucket boat that has six Super Bowl emblems on it? Become an inspirational speaker at Nantucket senior citizen bingo nights? Keynote speaker at inspirational events?
Curiously, there’s speculation he may want to become head coach of the worst NFL franchise over the past thirty years, the Washington Deadskins turned Washington Football Team (WTF) turned Washington Commanders turned Washington Whatevers turned Washington Wreckage.
Would Bill actually want this job? His roots are in Annapolis, Maryland so that may appeal to him. That said, I can’t imagine why he would want to take this job because the culture of losing there is so entrenched and the roster so anemic with “the worst secondary in the world,” according to Mike Francesa, that it would take five years at least for Bill to bring Washington, D.C. back to football glory when it won three Super Bowls and the entire area was galvanized around the team more than anything else in that area of non-togetherness and daily discord everywhere.
But I would welcome Bill to my hometown to lead them back to the mountain called the Lombardi Trophy. On Monday I want to hear him say in his press conference in the deadpan-ness he’s now filed a patented on that he’s “moving on to Washington.”
When he arrives at National Airport I’ll be the first one to greet him, along with my guy Ricky Williams, and ask him if he’d like to get high with me one more time, a reefer reunion to celebrate his start at leading my team to its fourth Super Bowl title.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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