The NY Press is Still Not Over Belichick and His 'Self-Entitlement'

Source  – It’s a shame the Patriots jettisoned Antonio Brown. He and Bill Belichick have so much in common. Both, for example, are excessively self-entitled.

January 2007. Belichick’s Pats had beaten the Jets, 37-16, in a playoff game. Belichick was headed across the field to shake hands with Jets coach and protégé Eric Mangini. … But suddenly, and for some still unknown reason, Belichick whirled to his left in a sudden unprovoked rage, grabbed the camera held high by veteran Boston Globe photographer Jim Davis, then violently shoved it into his face, specifically his shooting eye socket.

Shocked and injured, Davis staggered.

Surely, Belichick would be arrested, charged with an unprovoked assault. And if local law enforcement let it slide, the NFL wouldn’t. …

But nothing happened. Nothing. It doesn’t even appear on his permanent record.

We’ve since learned that Belichick, apparently in a private moment, apologized to Davis, who graciously let it go. …

So why would Belichick today think he’s bound to answer to the NFL freight-hauling public as to why he chose to sign Brown when the civilized world recognized Brown as a rotten and perhaps felonious act?

Why wouldn’t Belichick be rude and defiant rather than issue even bad answers to good questions? He acted similarly this summer when the Pats returned recidivist drug rules violator and WR Josh Gordon.

Why? Because he’s self-entitled. And for no good reasons he’s right! …

Bill Belichick may owe NFL fans his living, but no explanations. One-way street. Like so many players, he demands respect in exchange for none. He’s entitled.

So doing the math, it’s been almost 13 years since Bill Belichick, in the middle of a scrum of reporters jamming cameras in his face, pushed one. And coming up on 20 years since he scribbled “I resign as hc of njys” onto a paper napkin and handed it to his ex-boss at the Jets. And he still owns so much acreage in the heads of the New York press corps that the points and interest alone must cost more than the land Met Life was built on.

Holy shit, fellas. Move on. The statute of limitations on pushing a camera and destroying a franchise have long since run out. Belichick was never that into you in the first place, but he is way over you. All this hatred and animosity can’t be healthy for you. It’s time to find someone else to obsess over. As the old song goes, if you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with. Embrace Adam Gase or Pat Shurmur. And stop trying to get your old flame back.

But while we’re talking, congratulations to them for finally figuring out how the world works. Most people come to understand how talented people get to do things less talented people don’t by the time they reach their 25th birthday. But for some, it takes a little longer.

If that’s you, let me explain how this goes. In this life, we all exist on a seesaw. On one end, we put our accomplishments. And on the other, we put our negative behaviors. You can put a million tons of bad stuff on that end, as long as they’re outweighed by the good stuff. Because once the bad stuff outweighs the good, it comes crashing down. Hard. And all the good comes spilling off.

It’s that simple. Mozart was pretty much an uncontrollable, misanthropic, fart machine who brought chaos with him through polite Austrian society. But he was freaking Mozart. Van Gogh was a deeply depressed, self-mutilating stalker. But today is revered because he was the greatest painter of all time. Christian Bale is kind of a prick, but he could win an Oscar for everything he does. Whereas there has probably never been an artist talented enough to make us look the other way for the stuff that 6ix9ine has done.

Why is Antonio Brown gone from the Patriots? Because he quickly became more trouble than he’s worth for a franchise that wins without high maintenance wide receivers. He got away with it in Pittsburgh because they needed him more. The Patriots need Bill Belichick like you and I need oxygen and the New York tabloids need punny headlines and celebrity tits. He’s got so much good capital sitting on the metaphorical end of his abstract seesaw that they could find he’s running a China-style reeducation camp for captured news photographers and the teeter wouldn’t totter a millimeter.

But sure, go ahead and keep obsessing over a long ago settled personal matter. Be upset over the fact the Foxboro PD was never called in to haul him off to Walpole prison for his heinous crime of violence. At least until the end of the season when the NY papers are filled with rumors Belichick is coming back to fix the Giants.