Wow! That was one awkward press conference. However, what would you expect: this is Bellichick we're talking about. His press conferences are awkward by design. His premise is that by being as reticent as possible, saying as little as possible, and having as little personality as possible, is the goal of a press conference.
It seems to me that he's kind of a throwback or something. You know the expression 'ahead of his time?' Well that might describe his knowledge of the game or his coaching ability but certainly not his public style.
It seems to me that Rex Ryan's open book, open mouth style is much more in temper with the times. Bellichick in a way is shockingly lacking in vanity: he has no desire to make all the bold declarations of a Ryan. True both coaches are outliers, but Ryan is much closer to the average these days than Bellichick.
Another way to put it is that Bellichick is kind of the Dick Cheney of football-Rex is Bill Clinton. Keep in mind I don't necessarily know where I'm going with this, which style I'm praising as you can tell from the title of my blog that I am no fan of Dick Cheney with the opposite being the case for Bill Clinton. Cheney's style is probably a lot more unusual for a politician than even Bellichick's is for an NFL head coach.
They say Bellichick got his style with the media from Parcells, but that's not entirely the case. His style is very distinctive. Parcells, at least in his later years could be very short and rude with the media-as a Giants fan I think it was unnecessary. Still, Parcells was at least kind of likable even when he was cutting some poor reporter to the bone for the crime of just doing their job that we the public need them to do. Parcells had that big warm smile of his, and he was much more animated than Bellichick.
I'm a believer that people attack the press way too much: they do a vital job and it's for us and we ought to be more grateful-both for us the fans in football, but also in 'more important things'-you see I have trouble really believing there's anything more important-like politics, business, social issues, etc.
I think that Bellichick's style is almost willfully provocative or it can seem that way. Yet, I think I get the method in his madness: he looks upon anything he says to the press as giving information to his opponents. This is the prism he sees everything in.
So awkwardness is the coin of the realm for a Bellichick press conference. Yesterday's certainly fit the bill where we got the kind of strange lesson on air pressures and the process of selecting footballs on the morning of game day that might well puzzle an MIT physicist.
http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/patriots_nfl/new_england_patriots/2015/01/bill_belichick_mad_scientist
As awkward as seeing him put his mad scientist hat on, what's strangest is I don't think I've ever seen him in 15 years as coach of New England ever open up so much. I found this awkward man's awkward speech kind of touching really. I mean this was an impromptu, unscheduled press conference-when has Bellichick actually gone out of his way to speak to the press?-where he came out to defend his team.
He took issue with what was being said about his guys that they were just cheaters who wouldn't be here if the footballs were 12.5 rather than 10.5.
"This wasn’t the usual bland brand of Belichick that we’ve become accustomed to seeing on a daily basis. This version of Coach Hoodie was in attack mode. He was fully engaged and full throttle during his 23-minute session."
It seems to me that he's kind of a throwback or something. You know the expression 'ahead of his time?' Well that might describe his knowledge of the game or his coaching ability but certainly not his public style.
It seems to me that Rex Ryan's open book, open mouth style is much more in temper with the times. Bellichick in a way is shockingly lacking in vanity: he has no desire to make all the bold declarations of a Ryan. True both coaches are outliers, but Ryan is much closer to the average these days than Bellichick.
Another way to put it is that Bellichick is kind of the Dick Cheney of football-Rex is Bill Clinton. Keep in mind I don't necessarily know where I'm going with this, which style I'm praising as you can tell from the title of my blog that I am no fan of Dick Cheney with the opposite being the case for Bill Clinton. Cheney's style is probably a lot more unusual for a politician than even Bellichick's is for an NFL head coach.
They say Bellichick got his style with the media from Parcells, but that's not entirely the case. His style is very distinctive. Parcells, at least in his later years could be very short and rude with the media-as a Giants fan I think it was unnecessary. Still, Parcells was at least kind of likable even when he was cutting some poor reporter to the bone for the crime of just doing their job that we the public need them to do. Parcells had that big warm smile of his, and he was much more animated than Bellichick.
I'm a believer that people attack the press way too much: they do a vital job and it's for us and we ought to be more grateful-both for us the fans in football, but also in 'more important things'-you see I have trouble really believing there's anything more important-like politics, business, social issues, etc.
I think that Bellichick's style is almost willfully provocative or it can seem that way. Yet, I think I get the method in his madness: he looks upon anything he says to the press as giving information to his opponents. This is the prism he sees everything in.
So awkwardness is the coin of the realm for a Bellichick press conference. Yesterday's certainly fit the bill where we got the kind of strange lesson on air pressures and the process of selecting footballs on the morning of game day that might well puzzle an MIT physicist.
http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/patriots_nfl/new_england_patriots/2015/01/bill_belichick_mad_scientist
As awkward as seeing him put his mad scientist hat on, what's strangest is I don't think I've ever seen him in 15 years as coach of New England ever open up so much. I found this awkward man's awkward speech kind of touching really. I mean this was an impromptu, unscheduled press conference-when has Bellichick actually gone out of his way to speak to the press?-where he came out to defend his team.
He took issue with what was being said about his guys that they were just cheaters who wouldn't be here if the footballs were 12.5 rather than 10.5.
"This wasn’t the usual bland brand of Belichick that we’ve become accustomed to seeing on a daily basis. This version of Coach Hoodie was in attack mode. He was fully engaged and full throttle during his 23-minute session."
"This was Belichick at his finest. It was a brilliant, not to mention a necessary move by the Patriots coach. Not only was this a not-so-subtle shot back at the NFL, Belichick put his team back on track to win the Super Bowl."
"Belichick did his best to take the heat off the Pats. He went to bat for the organization, for Tom Brady and everyone else wearing the uniform who has been grilled all week by the media about the alleged improper inflation of footballs, and accused coast-to-coast of cheating."
http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/patriots_nfl/new_england_patriots/2015/01/bill_belichick_mad_scientist
He was saying 'You guys are accusing this group of players who have played so hard and done everything I've asked of them of cheating and that's out of line!.'
I also liked where he hit back at Spygate-which is what this whole thing is really about. It's not really about Deflategate but Spygate.
"Many of us in the room nearly fell off our chairs when he didn’t turn back a question related to Spygate and its correlation to the current case. Instead, he tackled it directly."
“That’s a whole other discussion,” Belichick said. “The guy is giving signals out in front of 80,000 people, OK? So we filmed him taking signals out in front of 80,000 people like there were a lot of other teams doing at that time, too, OK? But forget about that. If we were wrong, then we’ve been disciplined for that."
“The guy is in front of 80,000 people — 80,000 people saw it. Everybody’s sideline saw it. Everybody sees our guy in front of the 80,000 people. I mean, there he is. So it was wrong. We were disciplined for it. That’s it. We never did it again. We’re never going to do it again.”
This is something that all the categorical declarations that the Patriots have an asterisk on their achievements never do: relativize their harsh, categorical judgments by admitting that other teams have done what the Pats did too. I mean the coaches and their signals are out there for everyone to see: why is this considered the crime of the century? I'm not arguing that the rule says don't videotape it. Having said that does anyone even question the reason for the existence of the rule? I mean before you just declare 3 Super Bowls null and void you might want to at least ask that question.
People seem to have forgotten when the Packers accused the Bears of stealing their signals after losing to them 61-7 back in 1980 or how the Bengals and Oilers-before they became the Titans-used to regularly accuse each other of stealing each other's signals. This accusation is very old in football; it tends to be made by losers especially if the teams in question are long time bitter rivals.
So you go Bill Bellichick-no I'm no Patriot fan, I'm for the Giants all the way-I hope this has put your team back on the right track.
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