Bill Belichick refuses to answer!๐๐๐
He refuses to answer why he benched Malcolm Butler in the Super Bowl last year.
If you're familiar with coach Belichick, then you know he basically doesn't answer anything, and that of course you don't expect him to spill his heart out here.
Typically I like the way Belichick blows off questions. There's nothing to gain by volunteering information to the media. (Whether it relates to injuries or to the team's thought process, etc.) So he does the bare minimum of what he's required to do, which is stand on the podium and say words, but not give any actual information.
It's the game theory optimal way to do a press conference.
But there can come a point where explaining something is just fair to the curiosities of people interested in the team, and where that outweighs the need to guard information and protect competitive edge.
Could he have benched Brady in the Super Bowl and just not ever need to say why? How far could it go?
So the "on to next season, focused on training camp" gambit is really just about protecting himself personally.
And people can chalk it up to "well that's what Bill does when you ask him something". But no, it's kind of different. Usually when he's pressed for information (like "what's the status of Gronkowski's left hip?") it isn't that you're actually wondering or skeptical about him and what his motivations may have been and if he was coaching effectively or what the heck happened.
In this case, he's running the gambit for himself rather than for his team's competitive edge.
I'd actually like to see Robert Kraft step up and fire him, lol.
Bill realizes that there's nothing that forces him to explain his thought process. So okay, there's nothing that forces Patriots fans to remain patient with him either.
If he does something that makes no apparent sense and works to sabotage the team, the consequence of not explaining it is that it's fair to assume the worst.
IMO, Belichick is a wizard. ๐ง๐ง๐ง
But coaching is largely luck-based and there's only so much advantage that one head coach has over another. So if he's even capable of doing an ego-based thing that's bad for his team at a high leverage moment, it pretty quickly eats up his edge.
So if that's the version of Belichick that exists now (which probably isn't the version that existed 10 and 15 years ago-- now that he feels iconic and untouchable, now that perhaps he's invested in whether he rather than Brady gets the most credit for their dynasty), if you even have reason to believe maybe that's the version that exists now and that maybe his decisions aren't 100% focused on team output...
it at least isn't that bad to move on.
And given that Brady and McDaniels are already "coached up" by him, I'm not sure how much upside you'd really lose by just running on fumes without him for the last little stretch of Brady's play.
Psychologically it seems like it would be a nice 'reset' from last year, and the cleanest pleasure for Brady.
BoooOOOoooo Belichick BooOOOooOOooooOOOOOOooooooOOOOOoooooOOOoooo
Decisions that coaches make when they're trying to win (do you go for it on 4th down, etc.) should never be a big deal. Sometimes you make a decision that wasn't optimal, and making those mistakes is just a part of the battle.
But the thing about the Malcolm Butler benching is that it presumably wasn't even attempting to do what's best for the team's chances. It's hard to see how it could actually make sense and not just be a personal vendetta of some sort.
So if he doesn't want to explain it, okay, but then he doesn't get any benefit of the doubt either.
And if you're left to figure that you have a coach who can hurt his team for the sake of his personal agenda, then you just don't have a very good coach. And you should fire him.
go birds, but also this is unique in that one could argue that benching Butler probably cost the Pats the Super Bowl. i like to take the position that teams can do whatever they want and the market can decide, but I feel like belichick owes someone something (kraft?) and the situation just gets more bizarre the more I think about it.
Do you mean he owes Kraft something like, you're saying benching Butler was the favor to Kraft? Because of the contract stuff, like to make a statement to other players?
The Jimmy G drama adds to the confusion imo. Like I feel like normally I'd assume Kraft is on board and in cahoots with whatever Bill was scheming. Because of all that drama, I tend to imagine it more like Bill is saying F it and going out on his own. Which maybe is what's happening, but maybe not at all and the Jimmy G drama just makes it easy to assume that.
Nah, I'm saying that Belichick made a decision that could very well have lost the Super Bowl for his team, and while he doesn't owe the public an explanation (maybe?), he probably owes Kraft one.
Ah, right! I agree. I imagine he's probably discussed it with Kraft behind closed doors, which would kind of eat up my claim that Kraft should fire him.
(It would just be based on what explanation Bill gave behind closed doors.)
If I could be a fly on the wall, maybe I'd still err towards saying the team is better off without Belichick at this point. But maybe there's some inside info sort of thing where it actually makes sense somehow.
Kraft is loyal so it would be hard for him to fire Bill over my theoretical argument about personal motivation at the high leverage moments lol.
i'm being passive here by saying "one could argue", but I'll be stronger and say "I do argue". Playing Butler probably would have been the difference
Way to embolden your statement. And ya, at least from a CHAOS THEORY type of lens, like if we assume Foles isn't usually quite that wonderful, change it up and chances are you get a better result. But even besides that, ya, adding Butler to the secondary seemed like it probably would have been the difference.
Actualy, I support it at some point. First of all, I know exactly how mainstream media love to twist things around. They may not do it at that moment, but remember, everything is recorded and stored. Eventually, at some point, it all can be used against him whether the decision was right or wrong.
Watching Super Bowl I was actually wondering. After few hours I let it go. Now that you have made a post about it I searched it a bit...
At the end, Iโm certain they usually do discuss every major move being done. Otherwise, Belichick would be already gone.
Ya, it can be a combination of little reasons and not one single reason.
Note the Tweet you're showing is from February 5, day after the game. That was his impression at that time, but maybe today he wouldn't break it down quite like that.
The benching isn't super weird right off the bat, because you assume the reasons for it would come to light, and that it would be confirmed that he wasn't healthy or what rule he broke etc. But then if things don't get confirmed and teammates all support him and don't seem to understand why he didn't play, it grows more weird and mysterious.
Today I think most people would put things like "Bill wanted to make a statement" somewhere in the pie chart.