Today’s outrage is former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick not being elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
Considering all the other outrageous things that are happening in these United States, I suppose you could say this is small potatoes. And since Bill is tight with another, so maybe this is a weirdly misdirected payback.
Or maybe it’s karma for all those boorish press conferences and mean-spirited rejoinders to the members of the Fourth Estate during his long, dominating run with the Patriots back in the days when a coach was able to say it’s my way or the highway and mean it and the front office would meekly submit.
And if you’re wondering why it’s the Fourth Estate, my friends at Wikipedia tell me that this term arises from “the traditional European concept of the three estates of the realm; the clergy, the nobility and the commoners.” Speaking as one commoner to another, funny how dead-on accurate that seems these days, isn’t it?
Or maybe it’s karma for Wild Bill’s unceremonious dumping of ex-gal pal Linda Holliday, age 63, for — perhaps in his mind — the visual upgrade for the 24-year-old social climber, Dunkin commercial participant Jordan Hudson.
Ex-Patriots coach Bill Belichick dating former cheerleader 48 years his junior
The speculation from the boys in the backroom (and front room, too) is that this was the Hall of Fame’s hand-slap for the infamous “Spygate” scandal where Belichick supposedly had folks — and I am serious about this — “spying on the Jets.”
Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft selected as finalists for 2026 Pro Football Hall of Fame class
Now look, we need more humor in this world. And what could be funnier than someone intentionally “spying” on the Jets? Asking Diddy what he did with all that baby oil? If Bill had somebody do that, it could only have been for laughs, the way he used to run a bad play over and over and over again in meetings with the whole team. “Jesus, Brady, we can get a kid from Foxboro High to make that throw.”
Or maybe it’s karma for dumping players like Ty Law, Matt Light, Richard Seymour, Logan Mankins, Lawyer Milloy, Wes Welker, Chandler Jones and Jamie Collins after they’d given their all for the Patriots, were winding down their careers and Bill pushed them away, making the crack – “Better a year too early than a year too late.”
And that’s not even mentioning the sacrilege of letting St. Thomas of Brady go to the lowly (sorry, guys) Tampa Bay Buccaneers and win another Super Bowl because Bill didn’t think he could play any more.
It reminded me of a conversation I once had with NFL Hall of Famer Ken Riley, formerly the head coach of the Florida A&M University Rattlers here in Tallahassee. He was a standout defensive back for the Cincinnati Bengals back in the day and a season after he led the league in interceptions (or something like that) when busting head coach Paul Brown, a Belichick role model, walked over to Riley, who was lying on his back doing sit-ups in warmups and said, in a gruff voice “I’m looking to replace ya.”
The shock, the hurt, the out-and-out ingratitude still registered on Riley’s face years and years later as we sat quietly chatting in his office. The NFL is a cut-throat business. There is no room for Boy Scouts or glad-handers or sensitive souls who expect justice, fairness or a pat on the back for a job well done.
Though I did get a chance to cover a few Patriot-related events when I worked at the Middlesex News, the coach at the time was Raymond Berry, the former Baltimore Colts’ star receiver. who would be head coach of the Patriots for five seasons, including one where they unexpectedly went to the Super Bowl (and got buried by the Chicago Bears.)
My lingering memory of Berry was waiting for him in the press room, beat writers mocking him and making brutal in-the-know wisecracks as we heard footsteps coming up the stairwell, cowboy boots as it turned out. It was Berry and he had to have heard at least some of what these snarky Fourth Estaters had to say.
He walked in and sat down among us, stretched out his long legs, showing off those cowboy boots and said, “How can I help you gentlemen?”
I assumed he was talking to me.
John Nogowski is a former Connecticut resident, author and sports writer. His book, “Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography 1961-2022” is available online at Amazon.
