DHL Dan CCLXXXVII - The Never Ending Feud

In this week's Picked Up Pieces column, Shank manages to get some more mileage out of Bill Belichick's recent Hall of Fame snub:

Bill Belichick’s reputation was actually helped by Hall snub, but his feud with Krafts will never end, and other thoughts

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Picked-up pieces on the trail from San Francisco to the Gulf Coast of Florida . . .

⋅ Bill Belichick had a strong two weeks after it was learned that he’d been dissed by voters for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. When news of the ridiculous snub broke, Bill got a ton of support, even from longtime rivals and haters. Without making any comment, Belichick’s reputation was renewed and enhanced. It was the Hall that was embarrassed, not the coach. And folks in Canton, Ohio, will probably fix the voting process to make sure Belichick is enshrined in the summer of 2027.

The Patriots’ awful performance in Super Bowl LX was also good for the Hoodie. It was a reminder of how hard it is to win a championship. Lack of halftime adjustments made by Mike Vrabel and Josh McDaniels featured a sharp contrast to Belichick’s work with the Patriots in nine Super Bowls. The Pats lost three of those nine games, but were never blown out and could have gone 9-0. Bill somehow pulled out a game after trailing, 28-3. The 2025-26 Patriots, on the other hand, were almost historically bad in the Super Bowl — the first team in 51 years to go scoreless for the first three quarters — no threat to overcome a puny, 9-0 halftime deficit.

All in all, despite the Hall snub, Belichick quietly restored his image and reminded all that he’s one of the greatest coaches of all time.

I think people are inclined to forget the most recent things when evaluating a person's professional career. I don't think Belichick got any sort of boost from this, and this Hall of Fame rejection was little more than other folks in football delivering a righteous 'fuck you' to Belichick, who was a dick to pretty much everybody, and that might be soft pedaling things.

Singing A Different Tune Now?

Shank's feigning outrage over Bill Belichick not making it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame:

What’s the point of the Pro Football Hall of Fame if Bill Belichick doesn’t get in on the first ballot?

Ridiculous.

Also petty, embarrassing, unprecedented, stupid, and preposterous.

In his first year of eligibility, Bill Belichick failed to get enough votes for induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

It’s a farce.

The election process is somewhat complicated. Belichick was rejected by a Hall panel of 50 voters comprised of veteran media members, plus a handful of Hall of Famers, including Bill Polian, Tony Dungy, Dan Fouts, and James Lofton. Belichick needed at least 40 votes to gain admission, but according to an ESPN report, the Hoodie came up short and was informed of the snub by the Hall last Friday.

According to ESPN, in response to the rejection, Belichick asked associates, “Six Super Bowls wasn’t

Among all NFL head coaches, dead or alive, Belichick ranks first in Super Bowl wins (six), conference championships (nine), and playoff wins (31). His 333 total wins places him second only to the late Don Shula, who won 347 for the Colts and Dolphins. As a head coach and assistant, Belichick coached 49 NFL seasons, winning eight Super Bowl rings — six with the Patriots and two as an assistant under Bill Parcells with the Giants.

Count me out as someone believing this new change of heart by Shank towards Belichick. Do any of you remenber this one (links go to the DSW column we wrote at the time; old Boston Globe links are 404'd now) from September 2015?

Let's review a few other positive Shaughnessy columns about Bill Belichick, shall we? We all remember last year's Kansas City Massacre, right?

By the end of the night, the darts and arrows were coming from every direction. Bill Belichick was grilled about his musical-chair offensive line and the notion of starting two rookies in front of Brady in a loud enemy theater. The coach was asked if he might have to “evaluate” his quarterback position; the question from CSNNE’s Mike Giardi elicited a smirk with no comment.

There were hysterical calls for out-of-work Charlie Weis to replace Josh McDaniels as offensive coordinator. Darrelle Revis was compared to Carl Crawford (OK, that one was me). It was noted that no Belichick defense had ever surrendered 300 yards in a first half. There was a television graphic explaining that the Patriots offense ranks last in the NFL, averaging 4.6 yards per play. We were told that Brady has missed his target more than 25 percent of the time.

“I’ve never seen a team so unprepared,’’ former Patriot Rodney Harrison said on WEEI.

And who can forget the infamous '4th and 2' column?

This was as bad as anything the Red Sox ever did. Had it been a playoff game, it would be right up there with Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, Aaron Boone, and History Derailed in Glendale, Ariz.

And Bill Belichick played the part of Grady Little.

...

Even the legions of zombies who say “In Bill We Trust’’ and the formidable pay-for-play Patriot media machine will have a hard time defending the brilliant coach on this one.

As we noted at the time, this is the column Shank has been waiting nearly a decade to write. He hates the Patriots (and Bill Belichick) so much, he wrote another column about that loss the next day.

The Patriots spin machine was in overdrive yesterday (speaking of spin, nice try by the Red Sox - raising ticket prices on the day after Belichick channeled Grady Little).

There are New England football fans who’d support Belichick if he pledged to eradicate indoor plumbing. And the Kraft family’s media partners do a nifty job spreading the gospel of Bob, Bill, and Tom. But the blind loyalty was put to the test on the day after the disaster at Lucas Oil Can Boyd Stadium.

And now Shank is singing Belichick's praises, probably from the wrong end of a gun. Who's buying this? We sure as hell aren't, and this insincerity will be amply demonstrated if the Patriots lose big this season.

You can read about Shank's columns with respect to Spygate here, but as these columns make clear, Shank was no friend of Bill Belichick when he was coaching the New England Patriots.

DHL Dan CCLXVI - Shots Fired

In this weeks picked Up Pieces column, Shank looks at the bad blood between Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick:

The Robert Kraft-Bill Belichick divorce is as messy as any in our local sports scene, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while waiting for Bill Belichick’s NCAA debut on Labor Day evening . . .

⋅ The NFL doesn’t start until the Cowboys play the Eagles on Thursday in Philly. Meanwhile, there’s a holiday weekend college football smorgasbord, capped with ESPN’s Monday night showcase: TCU at North Carolina — Belichick’s first game on the sideline since a 17-3 loss to the Jets at Gillette Stadium on Jan. 7, 2024.

It often ends badly with star coaches and athletes around here. Remember Roger Clemens vs. Dan Duquette? Rick Pitino vs. The Fellowship of the Miserable? Terry Francona vs. Chicken and Beer? Rafael Devers vs. Red Sox leadership?

Belichick vs. Bob Kraft ranks high on our list of local sports’ harsh divorces.

A few days after Belichick’s final Foxborough moment, we got the phony photo-op with the owner putting his arm around Bill and claiming their breakup was “mutual.” Belichick played along, calling his firing “a day of gratitude and celebration.”

That was the end of the Kraft-Belichick decorum. Since then it’s been a series of heat-seeking salvos launched across multiple platforms — a full-fury-fusillade worthy of Gavin Newsom vs. Donald Trump, Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar, and/or Schilling vs. Shaughnessy.

On Your Radar

Every now and then I'll read a column by Shank that has the feeling (and accuracy) of an amateur / rookie gang member in their first gunfight, and his response will be 'spray and pray (that you hit something). This is one of those columns, and it's a humdinger:

Mb>He’s not on any team’s sideline, but Bill Belichick looms large over the NFL this season

For 24 seasons he was hiding in plain sight, grumbling, mumbling, taking care of every Patriot detail while playing the Stupid Game at NFL-mandated press conferences, refusing to release any information other than bare minimum, fearing it might hurt his team.

Now that he’s been fired and the Kraft family has tried to erase him from the franchise’s glorious 21st century history (see “The Dynasty”), Bill Belichick is ubiquitous. He’s on TV, radio, and social media outlets. And with the NFL set to kick off its season Thursday night, Belichick also will be rumored as the next head coach for high-profile teams that lose a couple out of the gate (hello, Giants, Cowboys).

In September of 2024, Belichick is the NFL’s Roy Kent. “He’s here. He’s there. He’s every(expletive)where.”

Sittin' on a park bench:

When we last saw him coaching — eight months ago at Gillette Stadium — Belichick was in full pandemic mask mode, covered from hoodie-to-Nikes while he slinked off the field as anonymously as possible. Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes. He could have been Cosmo Kramer (“Look away … I’m hideous!”). Four days later, Belichick was fired by Bob Kraft.

It goes on from there, rehasing much of the discussion about Belichick getting back into coaching, etc.

This ending is odd, I think:

Welcome to the media, Bill. Hope you don’t mind if we engage in rumors about the job you covet most: your next NFL head coaching position.

It doesn’t concern us anymore.

We’re on to Cincinnati.

It doesn't concern 'us' anymore, so I'll write a column about it!

DHL Dan CXCVIII - Tuna Talk

Shank's taken some interest in the post-Patriots Bill Belichick. Shank talks to another former Patriots head coach for some clues as to what's next for the other Bill:

Getting Bill Parcells’s take on Bill Belichick’s next move, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering why wannabe Patriots general manager Jonathan Kraft was called away to deal with a corrugated cardboard issue while the team he runs was introducing its new coach …

▪ Bill Parcells, now 82, is a Hall of Fame coach who won two Super Bowls with the Giants, then changed the culture of the Patriots when he came to New England in 1993. After four seasons and a trip to the Super Bowl with the Patriots, Parcells coached the Jets and Cowboys, then retired from the sideline at the age of 65.

The Tuna knows what it’s like to work for Bob and Jonathan Kraft, and he knows what it’s like to take on a new team late in his coaching life.

When I reached him on the phone this past week, Parcells was careful not to say too much about what went down in New England or what might happen with Bill Belichick.

Chaos?

I'm answering Shank's question about the rumors earler this week that Bill Belichick is heading to Dallas:

Imagine what might happen if Bill Belichick signs on to coach the Cowboys

It’s always about revenge here in New England, and we’ve seen this play out in dramatic fashion over the last week in Foxborough.

Shank knows a thing or two about revenge...

Bob and Jonathan Kraft are rolling out their new head coach (Jerod Mayo) Wednesday, but perhaps the larger story concerns the destination of Bill Belichick, who (along with Tom Brady) led the Patriots to nine Super Bowls in his 24-season run as head coach and emperor of the franchise.

Belichick already has interviewed with the Falcons, but there is a more intriguing possibility out there that he could take over the ready-to-win Cowboys, which would only escalate the personal war between the Krafts and the Hoodie, a dispute over credit, blame, legacy, and pro football immortality.

Can you imagine Belichick coaching Dallas and humbly telling Football America, “It’s nice to be working for a Hall of Fame owner”?

Nice shot at the Krafts, Shank! There's more of that in the column, like that's a surprise.

Situation Resolved - Au Revoir, Bill

The New England Patriots and coach Bill Belichick by 'mutual agreement' parted ways earlier today. Shank had this column done and posted a few minutes after the first noontime press conference had finished.

It’s Belichick and Auerbach, then everyone else when it comes to New England coaching greatness

Bill Belichick and Red Auerbach are the greatest two coaches in New England sports history.

By a mile.

Belichick and Auerbach are gold and silver. Or silver and gold. It’s not even worth talking about candidates for the bronze medal platform. One could argue Terry Francona, Harry Sinden, Dick Williams, Milt Schmidt, Tommy Heinsohn, Bill Parcells, Chuck Fairbanks, Claude Julien, Jimmy Collins, Bill Carrigan, and Joe Cronin. You get silly and make a case for Bobby Valentine and Clive Rush if you insist.

It does not matter.

It’s Bill and Red.

There is no other.

Belichick and Auerbach were the bookend builders of our two great sports dynasties ― the 1950s-60s Celtics, and the 21st century Patriots.

Since this was mostly written in advance, we'll probably see more Belichick / Patriots columns in the upcoming days. I fully expect one of those columns to place most or all of the blame for this separation on Robert Kraft.

Situation Not Resolved

As we await the fate of Bill Belichick, Shank pens another column and gives 'ol Bill some wet, sloppy ones:

If it was his final game as Patriots coach, Bill Belichick, a man of history and accomplishment, never, never, never gave in

FOXBOROUGH — It’s always about history with Bill Belichick.

He’s famously chasing the late Don Shula (347 wins) to become the winningest coach in NFL history (Belichick has 333). He donated his collection of football history books to the US Naval Academy in 2006. When it came time to tell his secrets to an author, Belichick favored the late David Halberstam, one of the great American history writers of the last two centuries.

Quite possibly, Belichick is now history in New England.

Sunday in a freezing, January snowsquall, Belichick coached his 429th and possibly final game with the Patriots, a 17-3 loss to the hated Jets in a largely empty Gillette Stadium.

Belichick reportedly has one year left on a contract that pays him around $25 million annually, but reports also claim he’s had no discussions with owner Bob Kraft regarding his future. The two are scheduled to meet Monday, a session that is expected to include Kraft’s combustible/fortunate son, Jonathan (Wonder if the Krafts will bring their high chairs to the meeting to remind Bill who’s boss?).

And now it's a bit clearer - Shank's buttering Belichick's ass now so he can use the firing / separation to blame in all on the Krafts. That'll be good for at least three columns, won't it?

DHL Dan CXCVII - The End?

Shank has some surprisingly good things to say about likely soon to be former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick:

If this is the end for Bill Belichick, he deserves gratitude, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if it’s Breslow-Ball or Bres-LowBall …

▪ Is this really it for Bill Belichick?

After 24 years, 17 division titles, 13 AFC Championship games, nine trips to the Super Bowl, six Lombardis, Spygate, Deflategate, Mona Lisa Vito, and 10,000 “just doing what’s best for our football team” non-answers … is this really the end for Belichick as head coach of the New England Patriots? ESPN’s Mike Reiss reported Thursday that Belichick, Patriots owner Bob Kraft, and team president Jonathan Kraft have a meeting scheduled for Monday. Putting beleaguered Bill in a room with combustible Jon is not likely to yield an amicable split.

Back at the turn of the century when Bill was hired, “Mr. Kraft” (a.k.a. “Robert”) was still plain old Brookline Bob and the ringless Patriots were playing in third-class Foxboro Stadium with aluminum bleachers. Myra Kraft was the franchise’s North Star, Gil and Gino were telling us where they ate dinner in Miami, and Scott Zolak was starting his media career with Bob Lobel after being cut by Dave Wannstedt in Miami. Tebucky Jones was trying to figure out what “press corner” meant.

Whither Belichick?

As the last week of the 2023-2024 NFL regular season approaches, the speculation into Patriots coach Bill Belichick's future intensifies:

Facing the toughest decision of his stewardship, what will Patriots owner Bob Kraft do with Bill Belichick?

What now, Bob Kraft?

Kraft has owned the Patriots for 30 full and fruitful years, but has never faced a decision like this one.

Feuding with Bill Parcells and firing Pete Carroll was easy. Deciding to break promises to poor Hartford was easy. Heck, even accepting Roger Goodell’s Deflategate sanctions — after demanding an apology from the NFL — even that was easy compared to this.

What is Kraft going to do about the future of Bill Belichick, the franchise coach who has won six Super Bowls for New England? I mean, how does Kraft fire Belichick, then someday invite him back for a statue dedication?

What isn't speculation is Shank's continued disdain for Kraft:

Belichick, Kraft’s head coach for 24 seasons, is 29-38 (including playoffs) since Tom Brady left and hasn’t won a playoff game in five years. After finishing 8-9 in 2022, Kraft apologized to fans and pledged that things would get better. Things have gotten worse.

Kraft does not want to fire Belichick. New England’s needy owner longs to be loved. He wants peace with honor. He’s 82 and desperately wants to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He didn’t like the way things ended with Brady and now he’s at a critical mass regarding one of the greatest coaches of all time.

The Bitter End

That's what Shank's calling the likely last month Bill Belichick remains as the head coach of the New England Patriots:

The ending is bitter, but does it have to be like this for Bill Belichick?

There’s not a lot of dignity in these Final Days of the Belichick era.

Reporters joust hourly to declare that Bob Kraft has made his decision on Bill . . . or that Bob is still deciding. An NFL Network insider Sunday reported that the final four games of this lost season will serve as a referendum on the Kill Bill question. That seems ridiculous, but if true, Belichick seems certain to continue his quest of chasing Don Shula’s wins record (which is now feeling like the Yaz Watch) someplace other than Foxborough.

The world champion Kansas City Chiefs beat the once-great Pats, 27-17, Sunday. The moribund Patriots were competitive for a half, but ultimately fell victim to the usual hail of penalties, turnovers, and failure to convert on third down (2-12) against a superior team. New England dropped to 3-11 with three to play. The Patriots remain on course to pick second in the 2024 NFL Draft.

Clearly?

I think there might be a problem with one part of this headline:

Bill Belichick is clearly trying to win, so what if he is still coach of the Patriots next season?

It was like the good old days in Pittsburgh Thursday. Bill Belichick pantsed Mike Tomlin (the two longest-tenured NFL coaches) and the 3-10 Patriots snapped a five-game losing streak with a 21-18 win over the 7-6 Steelers. Bailey Zappe threw three first-half TD passes while frustrated Steelers fans showered their team with mock cheers and begged Tomlin to insert his third-string quarterback.

“Had a lot of guys really come through in a game that we needed,” Belichick said after the win. “We had our moments . . . obviously very good defense . . . We played competitively against them.”

No tanking in this one. The moribund Pats beat a team that’s trying to make the playoffs.

All of which got me to thinking . . . what if Belichick is still head coach of the Patriots next season?

First off, if you have three wins at this point in the season, it's not entirely clear you're trying to win. Second - Shank might have a point with that last sentence. What if the Patriots go on a winning run and Robert Kraft gets cold feet about firing Belichick? Are there things in Belichick's contract which would make firing him a problem? We'll find out next month.

DHL Dan CXCIII - The Bill Belichick Interview

Shank games out a potential (likely?) sceanario at the end of the season for the New England Patriots:

Imagine if you will a Bill Belichick job interview, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while predicting a Patriots win over the Chargers Sunday …

▪ The notion of Bill Belichick coaching another team next season has taken on great steam in recent weeks. After last weekend’s awful loss in the Meadowlands, when Bill was asked about a report that he’s already made a decision regarding his next destination, the coach scoffed and said, “Yeah, that’s ridiculous.”

When a followup question was asked about whether Bill could envision himself coaching anywhere else, the Hoodie said, “Just trying to do the best job I can right now. Obviously, I need to do better.”

Just for fun, let’s fast-forward to Black Monday, Jan. 8, when Bob Kraft announces an “amicable parting of the ways” between the Patriots and their head coach of 24 years. Now imagine Bill going around the country for a series of job interviews with owners of various Panthers, Chargers, Titans, and Commanders.

Whether or not an actual Bill Belichick interview went down in this manner, it'd be interesting to be a fly on the wall in one of them.

Are The Tanks Rolling In?

After yesterday's brutal loss to the New York Giants, Shank's starting to wonder whether this is bad luck or New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick tanking the team:

Are the Patriots tanking? Bill Belichick is wired to win, but this hideous loss makes us wonder

Tank!

Tank!

Tank!

When is the last time a Patriots field goal kicker missed a 35-yard chip shot that would have sent a game into overtime?

It happened Sunday in the Meadowlands when rookie Chad Ryland hooked a 3-foot putt with three seconds remaining in a 10-7 loss to the Giants (a game that should have been flexed to April).

Wow. We haven’t seen a muffed kick like this since Baltimore’s Billy Cundiff’s 32-yard bunny sailed wide left in the 2011 AFC Championship game, delivering the once-great Patriots to yet another Super Bowl.

Was Ryland under orders to miss? Any chance the Pats, now 2-9, did not want to win to stay in position for a top-three pick in the 2024 NFL Draft?

DHL Dan CXCI - To Tank Or Not To Tank?

There's been plenty of talk about whether the New England Patriots should start tanking games in order to get a higher draft pick, but Shank says that's not how head coach Bill Belichick rolls:

It’s not in Bill Belichick’s interest to tank this season, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if Bob Kraft brought the Costanza Gore-Tex coat back from Germany …

▪ Let’s talk tanking, shall we? It’s bye week for the 2-8 Patriots, and if the 2024 NFL Draft were held today, they would have the No. 3 overall pick, trailing only the 1-8 Panthers and the 2-8 Giants.

It looks as if the Patriots need another quarterback, and top prospects include Southern Cal’s Caleb Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye, Washington’s Michael Penix, Oregon’s Bo Nix, and Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy.

Would Bill Belichick tank to secure any of these guys?

No.

Forget about the notion of Belichick playing to lose (although we did wonder when there was nobody back to receive that punt in Germany last weekend). It is antithetical to everything Bill believes. He coaches to win the game.

DHL Dan CXC - Checking In With Marv Levy

Shank talks to the legendary Buffalo Bills coach and naturally compares his last coaching days to Bill Belichick's:

Marv Levy can relate to Bill Belichick’s situation, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if the player-control, payroll-flexibility Red Sox will finally make a splash to show fans they are back in the business of winning …

▪ Marv Levy knows how Bill Belichick feels. Buffalo’s Hall of Fame coach worked for a veteran loyal owner (Ralph Wilson), took the Bills to four straight Super Bowls, stayed on the sideline until he was 72, then stepped down after going 6-10 in 1997.

Today Levy is 98, sharper than anybody running for president, and wistful about his final days as an NFL head coach.

“After the good run we’d had, we’d fallen back a bit and I just felt it was time,” Levy said from his Chicago home this past week. “Ralph tried to talk me out of it. He didn’t want me to retire.

“But after going to those four Super Bowls, we began to regress. We were bouncing back, but I just felt the time had come to go on vacation in Palm Springs and stuff like that. A year or two later, I regretted it and wanted to come back.”

Belichick and his Patriots are playing the Colts in Germany Sunday. A 3,600-mile trip across the ocean is a good thing for New England’s 71-year-old coach at this hour. The Patriots are 2-7 and some fans are leaning on Bob Kraft to make a coaching change. The unthinkable has suddenly become a real possibility.

And Shank's already got that column half written, doesn't he?

DHL Dan CLXXXIX - Leaving The Stage

In this week's version of the Picked Up Pieces column, Shank pretends to feel sorry for New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, in the midst of a losing season:

It’s getting tough to watch Bill Belichick go through this, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if Bob Kraft plans to trade Bill Belichick to the Commanders at halftime Sunday …

▪ Red Auerbach had it right. He retired from the bench after winning his eighth straight championship, his ninth in 10 years, in 1966. Red was 48 years old. He settled into a better life as a cigar-smoking, deal-making, opponent-baiting general manager, building two more Celtics dynasties on the way out the door. His legacy has never been challenged.

Belichick? Not so much. A long time ago, he said he didn’t want to end up like Buffalo’s Marv Levy, coaching into his 70s. Today Belichick is 71 years old, has the worst team in the AFC, and is 4-11 in his last 15 games — 27-32 since Tom Brady left.

And he’s taking heat from every corner of Patriot Nation.

Has Belichick simply stayed too long? Has the NFL game passed him by? Should Bill have walked away when Brady went to Tampa four years ago?

The death of Bobby Knight Wednesday brought some of this to mind. It got me to thinking about Knight’s final days at Indiana.

I was thinking this column would be another semi-hatchet job by one of the Boston Globe's finest butchers, but the recent passing of The General, unfortunately, brings another interesting parallel to the question - how long is too long to stick around?

Palace Intrigue

It was reported yesterday that New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick signed a new contract or a contract extension this past offseason. Shank smells a rat:

A reported new contract for Bill Belichick raises questions: Who planted it, and why was it leaked now?

Hours before the Patriots beat the Bills in a 29-25, last-minute thriller at Gillette Stadium, Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network reported that (according to “sources”), New England’s ownership signed Bill Belichick to a “lucrative multi-year new contract’' during the offseason.

Say what?

Media folks and fans never know anything about Belichick’s contract status. Within the walls of Fort Foxborough, Bill’s deal is guarded like the nuclear codes. A gameday thunderclap about his new contract predictably triggered rampant speculation regarding the timing and motivation of this news.

Which camp dropped the dime? Belichick’s or Bob Kraft’s?

At first glance, this news bomb seemed to be a Belichick plant. Why would ownership want this out there in the storm of a 1-5 start with Bill taking fire from every corner of the NFL universe?

More at the link and it's interesting reading of you're into contract stuff like this one.

Q & A Time With Bill Belichick

Shank took a trip to Gillette Stadium to get a bunch of grunts and half-answers from the affable Patriots head coach:

Bill Belichick knows how to work the clock, even in a preseason press conference

FOXBOROUGH — MLB has the highly effective “pitch clock.” Colleague Bob Ryan suggests a universal “anthem clock” to curtail unnecessarily lengthy renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before ballgames.

Monday at Gillette … for the 24th consecutive season, we again experienced Bill Belichick’s time-tested “interview clock.’’

We arrived at the coach’s coveted media availability armed with a list of questions. With the Patriots scheduled to fly to Wisconsin Tuesday, then on to Nashville for back-to-back road preseason games, Monday represented the local press corps’s last chance to talk to Bill at Gillette for almost two weeks.

Driving down Route 1, I’d heard sports-radio patter about undrafted rookie Malik Cunningham (in camp as a wide receiver) becoming one of the greatest sports stories of all time by unseating Mac Jones as the Patriots’ starting quarterback. Cunningham quarterbacked New England’s lone touchdown drive in the exhibition opener against Houston and is all the rage of a largely dull camp.

DHL Dan CLXXVII - Is This A Jedi Mind Trick?

I think it is - I can't believe what I'm reading!

Here’s a vote of confidence for Bill Belichick, and other hot summer thoughts

Picked-up pieces while waiting to see what Chaim Bloom does between now and Tuesday’s trade deadline . . .

▪ Bill Belichick is still the greatest NFL coach of all time. In my book, he gets the biggest slice of credit pie for those six Patriot Super Bowl trophies. He’s still at the top of his game, fearless, tanned, fit, and ready to lead the Patriots deep into the playoffs.

There. I said it. I am in the Still Bill Club.

It is not easy to reside in this club today. It makes me feel like Japanese intelligence officer Hiroo Onoda, who was found in a jungle in the Philippines in 1974, still fighting World War II, almost 30 years after Japan had surrendered. (One of my readers suggests that Onoda is the ultimate Do Your Job guy.)

Of course this praising of Belichick goes right into the dumpster with the Patriot's first loss.