Dear Bill - Thanks for Giving Away the Super Bowl.

[signbabybrady]

His reason is probably embarrassingly petty and if it came out now it could destroy Belichick

Yup because through the years BB had proved to be a petty little child.

 

[mosslost]

B.Bs coaching and decisions against Philadelphia were the worst of his career...it’s more embarrassing that he let a unknown rookie coach get the best of him.

I hope for and expect a big bounce back year for B.B..next time we get to the super bowl I’d love to see B.B. come up with a game plan just one time that dominates the opponent...

2018

17-2

SB 53 Pats 35 Cowboys 31.. last minute TD drive by Brady even tho Belichick ordered Brady benched because he was peddling snake oil anti aging cream in the streets of ATL.. Brady just defies him and plays games as player coach.

 

[sambam94]

I will believe it because it's what our coach said. I guess you're calling him a liar now? You keep bringing up that he wont throw a player under the bus but he didn't have to say anything. When asked if it was behavioral he didn't have to say no. He could have plainly said it was a team decision. Except he specifically said it was not punishment. Bill is not dumb and knows how to answer a question with a non-answer. He does it all the time. In this specific instance he chose to give an actual answer and you refuse to believe it.

ok..let's take him at his word, it was not disciplinary. So, he thought other players might be able to perform better than Butler. After seeing the defense getting shredded, why the refusal to try something else?...like maybe putting in your #2 CB who has played in 97% of snaps all year including the previous 2 playoff games? Why wouldn't he try something different..I mean isn't he known for not only being able to make half time adjustments, but also series by series adjustments? Isn't this the reason he is so great?

 

[Ivan]

I'll keep saying this.

In BBs EXPERT football assessment, he did not think Malcolm was prepared to help the team win. He did not think Malcolm was ready to do his job.

Lmao at those disagreeing with this. They honestly believe their judgment, with nothing to support it, is better than those involved with the decision, who had all the information needed to make the decision.

 

[makoute]

And they are trying to make their case without any real knowledge whatsoever.

We do have knowledge. We have the words of Bill and Patricia. Just using what they say alone is reason to to put the loss firmly on their shoulders.

 

[mosslost]

The Big Nickel was proven to not have worked to the tune of 41 points. Sticking with it was moronic. At that time, you have to scrap it, move Bademosi to outside corner opposite Gilmore (if you're not putting Butler back in there), McCourty out of the box, Chung on Ertz, Rowe back to the slot, and Richards off the field altogether. You can't just stick with an alignment that's getting lit up like a Christmas tree, but that's what they did. That's on Belichick. So whatever way you want to slice it, the coaching is at fault here. Otherwise, who are you blaming for 41 points surrendered and a Super Bowl L? Because it's got to be someone's fault.

Is 33 the highest losing point total in SB history? It can’t be but my brain is not coming up with one higher

 

[patsfan13]

I'll keep saying this.

In BBs EXPERT football assessment, he did not think Malcolm was prepared to help the team win. He did not think Malcolm was ready to do his job.

SO PLEASE, provide YOUR ewxpert assessment about how playing Butler could have been ANY Worse that the 41 scored by the Eagles, the D that didn't force a SINGLE PUNT in the game.

We all await your brilliant defense of BB on this "EXPERT football assessment" by the infallible BB.

 

[Absurdly Metro]

Agree completely. And beyond that they are a talking out of their asses because none saw a single play of Butler practicing in the weeks leading up to the Game,

Belichick was asked yesterday why it was better for the team for Johnson Bademosi and Jordan Richards to be playing than Malcolm Butler and he said because they had practiced. Apparently because of Butler’s limited practice time coming off the flu BB would have us believe Bademosi and Richards suddenly passed him on the depth chart. Belichick also said clearly the benching was for football reasons and was not disciplinary in nature. It’s been pointed out that were it disciplinary he probably, like Branch, wouldn’t have dressed and almost certainly wouldn’t have played on special teams.

 

[mosslost]

We do have knowledge. We have the words of Bill and Patricia. Just using what they say alone is reason to to put the loss firmly on their shoulders.

@Ivan has no clue

 

[Todd Bradley]

I'll keep saying this.

In BBs EXPERT football assessment, he did not think Malcolm was prepared to help the team win. He did not think Malcolm was ready to do his job.

That very well may be the truth.

But that argument goes out the window after halftime, when you realize that Rowe and Bademosi are completely overmatched.

To not even give Butler an opportunity and just continue on with the status quo is entirely the issue here.

 

[Kontradiction]

I'm sure Patricia had fault there.

They both did, but the defense and game plan is overseen by Belichick ultimately. If he wanted to change the alignment and put players back into their natural positions, he could have done it. He didn't. They stuck with an alignment that was getting them killed.

 

[Tuck]

I thought Butler's response to Reiss while getting on the team bus was telling because he genuinely seemed surprised and unsure of the reason for his benching. This tells me one of two things. Their was no single event that occured that was the obvious reason for his benching. If there was an incident he would have answered the question differently or not at all. The other possibility is he's a better actor than than most people give him credit for. I'm going with the first answer and assume it was performance related. This kid has all of the physical skills to be the top corner in the game but mentally, he seems to struggle at times.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Lmao at those disagreeing with this. They honestly believe their judgment, with nothing to support it, is better than those involved with the decision, who had all the information needed to make the decision.

Its what fans do. I get people are pissed off and upset. I am too.

BB makes mistakes. There are dozens of them to count.

My beef with some of these posters is:

A) They think it was just some dumb rule Malcolm broke
B) Do Your Job is a punchline.
C) They haven't a clue how you create and maintain a winning culture

 

[makoute]

Depth.

That makes no sense. If that was the case then whatever he did if he actually did do something was clearly not that big of an issue.

 

[Absurdly Metro]

It's strange that everyone is insisting that Butler must have been in the wrong when Belichick himself said it was not discipline related. By his own words, he preferred Jordan Richards and Johnson Bademosi over Butler, who played more snaps than any other Patriots defensive player this season, even when they were getting torched and missing tackles left and right.

I think Belichick, like Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men, wants everyone to know he gave the order for the code red on Malcolm Butler in SB 52.

 

[chasa]

Sure lets let Malcolm completely off the hook. Let's not make him accountable for his actions when the other 51 players and the entire organization are doing eveything they can to win the Super Bowl.

If you want a team in which the coach is selective and arbitrary pertaining which rules to follow and behavior is appropriate go root for the Steelers, Bengals or Ravens.

What Actions Robert?

Apparently according to bill it wasn't disciplinary.

Should we blame butler for getting sick the week before the game and having a bad week of practice? Agahlor was sick, im sure he wasn't perfect in practice, yet the eagles played him.

 

[RobertWeathers]

SO PLEASE, provide YOUR ewxpert assessment about how playing Butler could have been ANY Worse that the 41 scored by the Eagles, the D that didn't force a SINGLE PUNT in the game.

We all await your brilliant defense of BB on this "EXPERT football assessment" by the infallible BB.

It doesn't matter what I think.

It matters what BB thinks.

If you dont like how BB runs the football ops you need to go recruit Mike Tomlin.

 

[makoute]

If it happened Saturday night it was too late. Couldn’t make a roster move and couldn’t go into a game with2 1/2 corners.

The funny thing is hat is exactly what they did. They went into the game as if he had been sent home. They played as if he wasn’t dressed.

 

[Simpelton]

Yes he did let the team down. And in an ideal situation that should not have happened. That was out of Belichick's control

But everything afterwards and during the game was in Belichick's control. He proved his point. But at what cost? Maybe a SB win?

The cost should be considered. So should the precedent. And so should the reasons that a man like Belichick might pay that cost.

The Patriots have several more years to play for championships, as long as Tom Brady is still Tom Brady we will be in the mix. And it's entirely possible that we stick the replacement and are still competitive after he goes, if Bill does a good job coaching the younger replacements.

Now let's factor that into the decision. The Superbowl is important, but is it possible that another consideration is even more important?

Let's consider the things that Bill Belichick does to create greatness in this franchise. I think that it's a pretty fair thing to say, that bill knows what he's doing more or less. Now obviously, if he still makes the decision to put the Superbowl win at risk by benching Butler, he's protecting something more important to him than Superbowls.

Since there isn't very much more important to a football head coach than Superbowls, I think we can narrow the reasoning down to 1 of 2 things -- either Bill was on an ego trip, or he feared an existential threat to the Patriot Way if he let Butler carry on as if nothing was wrong.

Since Bill on an ego trip would be INCREDIBLY out of character, I think we've successfully narrowed down the core of the issue. The exact allegations of Butler's behavior are almost meaningless in that context. Whatever the meat of the problem with Butler was, the bones of the problem were that he represented a precedence-forming threat to the team culture that Bill was simply not prepared to tolerate.

The Patriot way is one of the few things in all of football that has a legit claim to being more important than any one Superbowl. The strong team culture that Bill has built up has had a huge role in producing at least 3 of our 5 Superbowls. Watching that team-culture edifice crumble in the name of short term gain is not a price Belichick would ever be willing to pay -- not unless he was short timing it and knew he was done at the end of the year anyway, which thank goodness, he doesn't seem to be acting as if that's the case.

Whether you like it or you don't, I think that's the core of the issue here. Allowing short-timing guys to ignore the rules and do whatever they want, whatever "whatever they want" happened to actually be in Butler's case, is not a path Bill will go down, because the end of that path is the death of the unique culture he's built in New England, and if he makes an overt decision to let that culture slip, even to win a Superbowl, he'll never get it back again. Pro athletes know a loophole when they see it and it's very, very hard to reestablish discipline in a team once you start to let things go.

If Bill honestly felt that tolerating Butler's sabotage of the Patriot way, whatever it happened to be, would have opened the entire Pandora's box of player disobedience and disregard for the rules that's sabotaged so many good to great teams (most notable recent example; the Steelers), then he had to take a stand against that. Even if it cost a Superbowl.

 

[TennisBallHead]

Just another defensive collapse by the "genius", Belidick.