All My Pain and Woe Can Be Summed Up by Rex Ryan Saying Belichick's Team 'Stinks' and No One Cares About It. Because He's 100% Right.
Please bear with me for a second as I take a bit of a long windup here. Trust me, I'm going to bring this around to the subject at hand without delay.
Ask most people who have been around SNL for a long time and they'll tell you that the best cast member in the show's history was Dana Carvey. He was the peak performer in what to me were the peak years and Dennis Miller is on record as saying that everything he ever did simply crushed. And when he was at the height of his powers, he used to do a spot on Johnny Carson at a time when Carson was not only still the king of Late Night but of all TV. And the running gag Carvey did was portraying him like he was totally out of touch, past his prime, and that his whole schtick was dated and irrelevant. And that impression drove Carson off TV. He'd roam the hallways of the studio saying something to the effect that once they start making you the butt of the joke, it's all over. So he retired rather than expose himself to further humiliation.
I bring this up because there's a moderate-to-severe controversy around the Patriots after they went all week splitting reps between their two quarterbacks and when they told the team Mac Jones was starting. Bill Belichick was at his most cryptic in his postgame presser, spending maybe 10 seconds of his four minute exercise in social awkwardness saying he didn't remember, but that it was some time during the week. Some of the players have contradicted that, among them Rhamondre Stevenson, who said everybody knew all along.
Where this circles back to the show business anecdote I led off with is that this isn't the Bill Belichick of his prime. In 2023, he's late-career Carson. At 2-9, with all his bad personnel moves, poor coaching hires, and failed in-game decisions piling up, he's becoming the punchline. And unlike Dana Carvey, who actually revered Carson and felt bad about how his impression was received, Belichick has real enemies with old axes to grind. And they're not about to miss the opportunity to make him a laughingstock:
The thing I hate most about Rex Ryan shooting his shot like this is that there's no counter argument. I'd love nothing more than to fire back. But with what? What ammo has Belichick given those of us who are still loyal? I suppose I could bring up the ButtFumble, but that was fucking 11 Thanksgivings ago. It would be like saying you couldn't make fun of Carson in the 1980s because that one time a tomahawk hit a target in the nuts was hilarious. No one cares about how badly Shrex Ryan's career flamed out years ago. The immediate problem is that he's right; no one cares about the team Belichick is currently in charge of, or the fake intrigue around which of his incompetent quarterbacks was going to be under center to start the game.
When you're on top, you get to play these mind games with everyone. In fact, it can be a stroke of genius when things are going right. The Giants said they prepared for Mac Jones, Bailey Zappe and even Will Grier, who got released on Saturday. Given that Jones threw for 89 yards and two picks in the 1st half and Zappe added 54 yards with one pick in the 2nd, they apparently had all the time they needed. In fact, they could've cut their time down and devoted the balance to planning the work Christmas party for all they needed the prep.
So the decision to be all mysterious about the starting QB situation goes on the pile of things that used to seem clever when everything was great around here, but now just feel forced and contrived. When every decision you make blows up and sets fire to everything like the blue smoke grenade at a Gender Reveal party, it just opens you up to ridicule from the likes of Ryan. Playing 5-level Mr. Spock chess is only impressive when you get to call "Checkmate." Without that, you might as well be playing Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots.
As far as whether Belichick himself is thinking about pulling a Carson, that sounds unlikely:
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Source - Asked today after the Patriots fell to 2-9 on the season whether he still enjoys coaching the team as much as he did in their glory days, Belichick answered, “Absolutely.”
“Every week’s a challenge and I’m excited about the challenge, the opportunity, and what we have to do to win each week. I’ll keep working as hard as I can to help our team,” Belichick said.
Which is great, I suppose. I mean, you don't want the guy running a multi-billion dollar operation to say, "Each day greets me with existential levels of fear and loathing, and I pray for the sweet release of death so I never have to conduct another film session or design another game plan." But at the same time that he's excited about the challenge every week brings, he's on a losing streak that extends well beyond the last four in the standings.
His coach hirings, drafts, free agent signings, free agent non-signings, game management, have all seen way more strikeouts than homers going back years. When Ryan says no one cares about his quarterbacks or his team any more, that's not a minority opinion. And it's hard not to imagine it goes all the way up to the owner's box in Gillette. Believe me, nothing would fill my heart with more joy than watching him launch a huge career comeback and throw it back in the face of everyone who smells blood in the water and is coming after him. I just don't want to see him prolong this humiliation any further.