THE DEMISE OF AN NFL COACHING LEGEND

Bill Belichick Sat on a Wall

Bill Belichick had a great fall

Yes, even the giants in our world can fall off the wall. If we’re honest with ourselves, there might be some schadenfreude because it reminds us that everyone is human — no better or worse than the rest of us.

So this might explain why, even though I am a New England Patriots football fan, I’ve experienced some satisfaction in the recent demise of head coach Bill Belichick, who will go down in the history books as one of the greatest coaches of all time, followed by experiencing one of the steepest declines of all time. This year, they are true cellar dwellers with a win/loss record of 2–9, only to be outdone by the Carolina Panthers at 1–10.

Belichick’s rise and fall made me think about “Humpty Dumpty” and ask, “How did Bill Belichick fall off the wall?” But to be fair, I will start with how long he sat on the wall. The refs might be watching, and I don’t want to be called out for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Bill Belichick reigned for 23 years as the coach of the New England Patriots. All coaches and sports pundits genuflected in his presence because Bill was great and daunting in a very dismissive way. How great was he?

Bill earned six Super Bowl rings for the Pats. Before that, he earned two rings as defensive coordinator for the New York Giants. He has only two unringed fingers!
Bill remains the longest-tenured coach in the NFL. He has been in the NFL for a record number of 49 years. He mentored and bullied countless players to greatness. His coaching philosophy could be summed up as “No pain, no glory, and I know how to create the pain.”
Bill is second only to former Miami Dolphin coach Don Shula with 300 career regular season wins. Shula holds 328 wins. Belichick would need to coach for at least two more seasons to catch Don, and he would need to find a very winning team (aka, not the Pats).

There is no question that for many years, Belichick was the smartest man in the room, on the field, or behind the podium during the too-long, miserable press conferences. However, either his smarts have withered, or the rest of the field got smarter because the disparity between Bill and everyone else no longer exists.

Now comes the fun part. How did Humpty Dumpty fall?

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

While many moments could be cited as indicative that Bill was losing his mojo, here are a few obvious ones:

Bill let Tom Brady go: The Patriots offered Tom Brady a two-year contract at $53 million. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers countered with a $30 million per year offer. In 2021, the value of the New England Patriots franchise was estimated to be $5 billion. Today, its worth has jumped to approximately $7 billion. No scenario could justify New England not closing the $14 million gap. Tom got the last word and earned a ring in Tampa. Bill? Humble pie.
Bill benched Malcolm Butler in Super Bowl LII: Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles of Philadelphia picked apart the defense to win because the Pats' pass defense had a giant hole. Butler had played on 98% of the snaps that season, and his replacements were weak. Benching him is widely viewed as the reason the Patriots lost. The benching was never explained by Belichick, though rumors persist that Butler didn’t try his hardest in one practice and ran afoul. Whatever the reason, Butler is a gamer, having had the major interception near the end of Super Bowl XLIX in 2015 to secure a Patriots victory. He shows up in big moments, except for the Super Bowl versus the Eagles, where he wasn’t allowed to show up.
Bill has consistently drafted poorly: The list of poor choices is too long to go through. Sunday, I watched our fourth-round pick, field goal kicker Chad Ryland, miss a field goal that was the equivalent of a PAT (point after touchdown). Had he made the field goal, the game would have gone to overtime. Ryland has done poorly all year. More should be expected from a fourth-round pick. Once again, Belichick whiffed.
Bill has been unable to develop young quarterbacks: Most recently, Mac Jones, a former first-round pick out of Alabama, has been just short of a disaster, but many precede him. O’Connell, Cassel, Mallet, Garopollo, Brissett, Stidham, and now Jones have all floundered under the Belichick regime. Don’t draft quarterbacks if you can’t develop them.
Bill holds grudges that lead to bad decisions: Jakobi Meyers was the only wide receiver who consistently performed and appeared to have chemistry with Mac Jones. Gone! Instead, in an unmitigated disaster, we signed JuJu Smith-Schuster. Meyers went to the Las Vegas Raiders and is having a standout year. Both Myers and Smith-Schuster make $33 million. One player actually catches the ball. The other player can be seen throwing his helmet on the sidelines and fighting with coaches. While we don’t know what exactly Meyers did to get on Bill’s wrong side, we do know that Bill got the last word, and we got skunked.

I could offer more examples of how Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall, but if I pile on, I risk unnecessary roughness.

It’s enough to say that an over-sized ego, trying to outsmart other coaches with “clever” draft picks when more obvious solid choices exist, leading not as a man among players but as a God above players, and having to always be “right” has led Humpty Dumpty to fall off the wall.

Concluding Thoughts About the Great Demise

To Bill, I say thank you for the six Super Bowls. Yes, you could sometimes be a jerk during press conferences, and you consistently underperformed in the draft, and the idea of giving players a little rope is nowhere in your playbook.

But it worked for a really long time until it didn’t.

I subscribe to a unique philosophy of how the world works, and it goes like this:

“The sun has to shine on every dog’s butt.”

It’s time for New England to find another dog… I mean, Coach. You will no doubt be a Hall of Famer. You have given those of us in Boston six years of glory.

But now we’re at the part where Humpty Dumpty has fallen.

My guess is that you won’t need the horses to put you back together again. Maybe with just a smidgeon of humility and a mature quarterback that doesn’t need developing, you will be back… somewhere else, I mean.

Good luck.