I wonder how often sports writers believe what they write and say, and how often they just do it to create controversy an audience in order to generate revenue.
Using the word arrogant right after the name Belichick is a low form of pandering to the masses, even more so when it is in the headline. An obligatory spygate reference in the column makes it even more obvious.
There's no free agency to write about and with the lockout in place the only other scheduled event is the draft; so writers reach for a story to create news.
Prisco isn't the only one to jump on this. Greg Bedard and Shalise Manza-Young at the Globe are whining about it too, saying "Belichick should have talked today because Patriots fans deserve to hear about the team. He didn't talk at the combine. There's a lockout. What you would have heard today could likely be the final comment on Patriots football until September."
When asked "so he won't talk on draft day?" Bedard said "I don't know." One person said to Bedard "Fans deserve? Fans don't care." to which Bedard responded "you haven't read my emails."
Belichick did speak yesterday, but it was a whole lot of nothing with his responses; I'm not sure why Bedard feels as though today would have been any different.
SMY pointed out that "while it is not a requirement that coaches attend the breakfast, since they must attend the league meetings, the breakfast is placed on their schedule as a courtesy to the media covering them" and knew precisely how much time Belichick spent with them yesterday (7 minutes and 38 seconds according to her stopwatch).
It seems to me what it comes down to is that some reporters like Prisco and New York Post writer Bart Hubbach (who wrote "31 coaches showed up for the NFL media breakfast. Only exception: Belichick. Once again Bill acts like the rules don't apply to him. I hear Belichick had a legit excuse for his no-show today: He was busy studying illicit videotape of opponents' defensive signals.") simply jump on anything Belichick does and disparage him because they know it's money in their pockets. Other like Bedard and SMY get upset because covering him and the Pats is a more difficult job than covering a coach like Ryan (note Hubach's very next comment: "no surprise, on the other hand that Rex was epic this morning. Held court for more than an hour. Great stuff ...") and the Jets, for example.
When exactly did the reason for these meetings specifically and the job of a coach in general become to entertain the media?
One last comment: kudos to CSNNE's Mary Paoletti for calling out Hubbach with her "you're an NFL reporter?" response to him. And kudos also to writers like Christopher Price and Mike Reiss who continue to find interesting topics to write about even if Belichick isn't talking, and making that the story.
excuse
