Watching Belichick Assert His Dominance on the Manningcast is the Only Way to Consume Football Now
A while back my brother came into possession of a DVD from a Patriots-Jet game on Monday Night Football from 1976. And aside from it bringing back fond, nostalgic memories of that "Grogan's Heroes" playoff team, it made me realize two things about the way NFL coverage has changed in the decades since:
1. The commercials were all for cars, car care products, and beer. With not a boner medicine or any other pharma ad anywhere in sight. Apparently when you spend all day flushing the radiator of your Mercury Zephyr, the hardness and girth of your erection was not an issue.
2. The only real improvements in game presentation the networks have come up with in all that time are the yellow line to gain, and keeping the game clock on the screen at all times. That's it. Those are the only practical, useful improvements they have to show for all their advancements in technology. The rest of the stuff on the screen is just whistles and bells. White noise. All sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Which is to say, until now. Until the 2024 season. Because the art form that is televised sports has finally achieved the perfection it has been evolving toward ever since Philo T. Farnsworth invented the medium. Thanks to Bill Belichick joining the Manningcast.
The idea of him ever leaving coaching seemed impossible. But he didn't leave coaching; it left him. Temporarily, anyway. And it's not just to his benefit:
... but to the good of all of us. Belichick is giving us the content we never knew we needed, but did. Now that he's free to say what he's thinking without having to be concerned about how it'll affect his chances of winning, he's presenting the best version of himself.
I mean, name another human currently walking the Earth who would humiliate Peyton Manning for the Colts getting caught piping in crowd noise on his own show:
Left unsaid, though it's there in the subtext, is the fact that Manning's Colts led the NFL in accusing Belichick's Patriots of cheating. They've all confirmed that Peyton and Tony Dungy used to meet privately in the hallway at Gillette because they thought the visitors' locker room was bugged. Eli even got in a dig about how Bill Polian got the coverage rules changed in 2004 stop the Pats physical style, though I can't find a clip of it. Meanwhile Indy never got punished for piping crowd noise into the RCA Dome. Not even a fine, never mind losing a draft pick for actually getting caught actually cheating.
Then there was Belichick speaking for all of us when ESPN's cameras cut away from the action for the obligatory shot of Taylor Swift:
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That disgusted look spoke volumes. That "Ugh" was more eloquent than any Shakespearean soliloquy. And this was coming from a true Swiftie who's seen her in concert twice. In the way it was famously said, "Only Nixon can go to China" because he had a reputation for being a real anti-Communist, Belichick can tell the networks, the NFL and Taylor herself that we're way past "Enough is enough" time on the overexposure.
Then there was this exchange, where he wasn't shy about explaining how pencils work to Archie's kids like they're 4 years old:
Then of course there was his usual frustration with the terrible coaching. The inexcusable way New Orleans defensive linemen kept getting behind Patrick Mahomes, allowing him to step up in the pocket and make plays. Their inexplicable failure to double Travis Kelce. Basically the cranky, impatient perfectionist we've all come to know and love. But perhaps his best moment was when they celebrated the 10th anniversary of this Greatest Hit:
That's like showing a great athlete his own career highlight. Mike Eruzione's goal. Dwight Clark's catch. Tiger's putt at the 16th of Augusta. Like all of us, Bill is beyond sick of watching Swift cheer on her man. But his own greatest press conference triumph? The one that he got universally ridiculed for, that became a cliche, a meme, and then a rally cry for the eventual Super Bowl champions? That never gets old.
Neither will Belichick's broadcast career. Get his second Emmy award ready for him. And let's enjoy this ride while it lasts.