The Belichick Haters are Not Passing on the Opportunity to Kick Him When He's Down

Adrian Kraus. Shutterstock Images.

It's not easy being king.

Of all the archetypes of leaders we've had, from the Old Testament to the Classics to the modern day, possibly none is more identifiable than The Ruler Who Has to Make a Grave Decision All on Own and Live With the Consequences. Moses climbing Sinai. Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Jesus in the Garden of Gethesemane. Lincoln emancipating the slaves. JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In that position, in moments where history will be decided, you can seek all the counsel you want. But at some point, the decisions are yours and alone. So is the fallout. And, as we these great men, there are always those waiting for you to fail so they pounce and further their own agendas. 

As Henry V put it, on the eve of a seemingly hopeless battle, his men sick, starved and hundreds of miles away from home:

Upon the king! Let us our lives, our souls, our debts, our careful wives, our children, and our sins lay on the king!

We must bear all. O hard condition,

Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath

Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel

But his own wringing. What infinite heart’s ease

Must kings neglect that private men enjoy?

And so it is with the closest thing we 21st century humans have to these other leaders, deliverers and one messiah, Bill Belichick. He has faced enormous dilemmas. Made monumental decisions and been solely responsible for their outcomes. And has made mistakes. Some not in keeping with how he's often done things. One in particular, I will argue was being honest about the situation we find ourselves in. Over the weekend, he spoke to Charlie Weis on SiriusXM and leveled with his old pal about the challenges he's had to confront.

"We're playing more young players than we've played in the past [for a] combination of reasons," he said. "We were pretty heavily invested in our team in the past few years. From a salary-cap standpoint, we didn't have much flexibility at all. I think that was obvious on the Cam Newton contract.

"Then we had some opt-outs, so we lost some players there that would normally have been giving us significant amount of playing time. And then like every year, a couple guys are banged up and we've missed some guys here and there in certain games. …

"This is kind of the year that we've taken to, I would say, adjust our cap from the spending that we've had in accumulation of prior years. We just haven't been able to have the kind of depth on our roster that we've had in some other years. That's provided more opportunity for younger players. So it's a combination of all the reasons."

It sounds reasonable enough, right? He's in a situation he has tried to avoid for the better part of 20 years and has largely succeeded. His team lost a ton of free agents. The bill has come due on players whose financial can they had been kicking down the road, delaying the inevitable. Not the least of whom was Tom Brady. According to Mike Reiss, they carried $26 million in dead money into the year. Then got whacked with more Covid opt outs than any other team with eight, including key starters Dont'a Hightower, Pat Chung and Marcus Cannon. So it's fair to say Belichick's making sound, rational points here. And facing the sort of financial and roster adjustment every team has to go through even in the best of times, without the opt outs and uncertainty. Which is why it's so hard to stay competitive year after year. Right? 

Wrong. At least if you're among the legion of anti-Patriots media zealots who've been predicting the Dynasty's doom for 20 years and are sick of being proven wrong. For them, chaos is a ladder:

Advertisement

Yeppers. 

Why allow nuance and rational thought into the discussion when you think you smell blood in the water for the millionth time? Just start the feeding frenzy and have a blast for yourself?

Before we go over the facts, let's remember that Ron Borges was in on the ground floor of the Anti-Belichick jihad for the sin of not being Chan Gailey, whom all the Boston media buffoons wanted. Then for the unpardonable sin of sticking with Brady after Drew Bledsoe came back. To the point he actually tried to lobby ownership to give Drew his job back on the argument that Belichick "lied" to him about it being his to keep. Like somehow quarterbacking is the same as being a SCOTUS justice; you can't be removed you can only leave on your own. And he lost his last job when some anonymous troll catfished him into writing a fake news story by posing as Brady's agent Don Yee. So yeah, needless to say old Ctrl+C Borges is going to give no benefits of any doubts just because you've built the longest sustained dynasty in any sport in the free agency era. 

As far as Ben Volin … well, he's going to Volin. And complain about how nothing's been done to address the tight ends and wide receivers. Not enough to keep Brady satisfied at least. Despite the fact they won Super Bowls in recent years with Gronk, Martellus Bennett and Dwayne Allen and used two third round picks at the position this past draft, the second and fourth TEs to come off the board. At wide receiver, they used a first on a second year player who's injured for the second straight year. Sent a second last year to Atlanta for Mohamed Sanu. Signed Josh Gordon twice. And Antonio Brown, who wasn't kept because he was unkeepable. Used a first to get Brandin Cooks. Signed Demaryius Thomas. Cordarelle Patterson. Phillip Dorsett. Kenny Britt. All first round talents or damned near first rounders. All who failed to work out to various degrees. But to claim there's been a lack of effort or shopping with pennies is just a fallacy. 

Advertisement

Belichick went on to correctly point out his team was in good shape coming out of camp and played well for the first three weeks. Then Covid hit its two most important players and everything went sideways. That's not excuse making, it's a fact. They shuttered the facility and played two games with two total days of practice and it's been a clusterfudge since. (My word, not his. He doesn't have to work blue.) And I'll add that they had the game in Buffalo practically won until a killer mistake at the end sent them home 2-5 and out of the division race instead of 3-4 and in the hunt. 

And as far as Volin's and Andrew Brandt's argument that they've got a ton of cap space but just haven't spent it because they're incompetent and cheap, it ignores the basic fact they didn't have this cap room until after the free agency period. In fact, most of it was freed up by the opt outs. In mid-July, they had the fewest dollars available in the league, with less than $700,000. Settlements with Brown and Aaron Hernandez estate freed up enough to have the ninth fewest. But they didn't really start saving money until they lost players. Important players. Players who have had to be replaced with free agents, second year players and rookies. So to argue they should've been running around in March handing out giant cardboard novelty checks like Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Fun Run Pro Am Race for the Cure is just being disingenuous. As is claiming the king who built this kingdom is not aware of what the big picture is here and what needs to be done

This sucks. Nobody thinks it doesn't suck. It's also an anomaly. And the one person in the history of the human race I want to be addressing the situation is addressing it. So have your fun while it lasts. Just remember that the hopeless battle Henry V was about to fight was Agincourt. His team won and ran up the score on the French. This is nothing this king hasn't dealt with before.