Belichick Conducts a Masterclass on How to Handle Reports You've Already Been Fired

Erica Denhoff. Shutterstock Images.

Do either of these GOATs seem worried to you? 

As hard as this may be to accept, football coaches are human just like the rest of us. OK, maybe not exactly like the rest of us. Normies don't put in 20 hour workdays or exercise absolute power over 53-man rosters of Alpha Male supermen who weigh 330 pounds or can run 4.3 40s. But as Shylock puts it, coaches too are fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as us nobodies. 

With one exception. Have any other head coach in the history of football at any level be subject to reports the decision on his future has already been made:

… and he's going to react with some human emotion. Put anyone behind a podium where questions about the report are fired at him like the tennis ball cannon on American Gladiators, and you can guarantee a visceral reaction. A display of pain, surprise, anger, sadness, regret … something, rather than nothing. It couldn't be any other way.

But if you thought Bill Belichick would be subject to the same types of feelings mere mortals are vulnerable to, you haven't been paying attention. Ever. This was him just now:

This is the millionth time he's proven my point that of all his geniuses, none has been more effective than his genius for taking all the air out of a controversy. Faced with a series of relevant, penetrating questions, he reroutes all his power through the warp engines and sets his forward deflector shields to Maximum. And when he does, nothing can penetrate them. 

He did it when he announced Tom Brady was his starting QB over a healthy Drew Bledsoe in 2001. He did it when he released Lawyer Milloy two years later. He did it after 4th & 2, Spygate, Deflategate, a dozen or so other -gates. He even pulled it off when a good two dozen TV trucks from all around the country showed up to the first day of camp the year he signed Tim Tebow. Their satellite uplinks rose above the parking lot like a field of sunflowers. And after one presser, all the professional hard news journos on hand realized they'd met their match. He disarmed them with a constant stream of "He's here to help the team." And the next day they were gone. 

And there is no more famous example than "We're onto Cincinnati," from 2014. At the time it was treated like an outrage. Until it became a catch phrase. Then after a convincing win over the Bengals, became a rallying cry. Now it's the stuff of legend. And "Getting ready for Kansas City" is the new mantra. 

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Whether it will have the desired effect the way "Cincinnati" did remains to be seen. All I know is that if the Krafts have decided to move on from Belichick, this is just a small part of what they'll be losing. Having a face of the franchise who can establish absolute dominance over a press conference in good times and in bad is no small thing. Putting someone before the public who can control the message and never - not once - say something regrettable that makes a problem worse is as valuable as it is rare. And a head coach who is not vulnerable to the same emotions that govern all human behavior is damned near impossible to find. There's only ever been one. And the Patriots have him. Move on from this unicorn just because of one bad season (where seven of your 10 losses have been by one score or less) at your peril. Because you'll never find another like him. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do. I'm getting ready for Kansas City.