Dear Bill - Thanks for Giving Away the Super Bowl.

[SVN]

This is at its core an emotional argument. Thing A didn't work. That's what we know. It's not an unreasonable hypothesis that Thing B would have worked better, but since it's untried, the outcome is unproven and unknowable. All we know is that what they tried didn't work.

And what we didnt try ,also didnt work. We will never know what wouldve happened but at least you can be at peace if they tried everything they could.

 

[IllegalContact]

True. but Parcells probably wouldn't have given Brady a chance in the first place.

he won an SB with hostetler

 

[carmelo15]

You know what I don’t even remember Philadelphia having a difficult reception

 

[Simpelton]

Without fans there is no team for Belichick to coach and make millions of dollars. Don’t sit here and talk about what’s convenient like Belichick has done so much for us and it is wrong for us to be upset or question his decisions. Belichick might have done his job well in previous years but he didn’t do it well on Sunday night. If it was my decision I would fire him. He hurt an entire fan base, 62 other players, and a coaching staff all so he could stick it to one 25 year old guy who wanted to play so badly he was in tears before the game. Belichick deserves to be fired and if you feel otherwise you’re a nostalgic sucker.

If it was left up to the fans, every coach and player currently on this team would have been fired about 270 times.

 

[BadMoFo]

NFL Rumors: Bill Belichick Didn’t Give Malcolm Butler A Reason For Benching

 

[IllegalContact]

And what we didnt try ,also didnt work. We will never know what wouldve happened but at least you can be at peace if they tried everything they could.

I guess that's my hangup........they had someone who COULD have helped and chose to not even try it for a few plays....especially troublesome given he played 100% vs Jags and Titans and the team suffered as a result of him not being out there

 

[PatriotsNumero1Fan]

the only thing we know is that someone said it was not discipline.......if it was scheme, then he would have found his way on the field at some point when they realized they had no way to cover Agholor......sounds like an emotional decision to me

That's so bs! Scheme. You telling me that bademosi or whoever's better than butler on agholor? Agholor killed us with some big plays. Some big 3rd down plays as well. People will keep talking but we will never know the truth.

 

[Simpelton]

You know what I don’t even remember Philadelphia having a difficult reception

Foles was on fire, and they had a good two headed running attack.

We were just beaten by good personnel who were well coached

BB can exploit a coach's weaknesses, but what is he supposed to do when a coach doesn't show any? What the Eagles' coaches did was frankly impressive. They deserved to win and probably would have won even with Butler out there.

 

[IllegalContact]

If it was left up to the fans, every coach and player currently on this team would have been fired about 270 times.

meaningless

 

[BadMoFo]

You know what I don’t even remember Philadelphia having a difficult reception

Foles made a lot of perfect throws and there were quite a few touch catches, Both catches by Jeffrey seemed difficult as did the Torrie Smith third-down conversion catch on the first drive.

 

[IllegalContact]

Foles was on fire, and they had a good two headed running attack.

We were just beaten by good personnel who were well coached

BB can exploit a coach's weaknesses, but what is he supposed to do when a coach doesn't show any? What the Eagles' coaches did was frankly impressive. They deserved to win and probably would have won even with Butler out there.

maybe......but he was there and ready to go at a position that killed us.......so not even trying is the big wrong here

 

[TBR]

I think you hold BB to a higher moral standard than I do.

BB played Chandler Jones when he was high on synthetic weed and staggering around 1/2 naked throughout Foxboro.

There is a story Lawrence Taylor was in jail overnight on drunk driving and BB had a Giants lawyer bail him out. Parcells approved it.

The common thread was both players - in BBs estimation, practiced well, knew the gameplan and he trusted them to do their job on Sunday.

I don't have a problem with any of those scenarios. Most of us, including Bill, know that he'll never field a team of 53 choir boys. Although citing those examples only add to my point. How is Bill "Rules Are Rules" Belichick being consistent? It's easy to move the goal posts and point to other factors like "practicing well, knew the gameplan, trusted them to do their job, etc." since the moment I take issue with that as it relates to Butler, the response will be "well you weren't at the practices".

Neither of use were at the practices, but I find it very hard to believe that Butler wasn't trusted to do his job or struggled with the game plan. Come on. He played 100% of the snaps vs the Titans and Jags, amassing 4 and 6 total tackles in each of those games.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Agree completely. They must be proud of their participation ribbons.

Everyone is pissed off, sad and upset. I get it.

The only point I'm trying to make is that a winning foundation and culture is not fleeting. It has standards and accountability. To maintain that requires 100% commitment 24x7x365 and has zero room for those who are not committed to the cause.

Malcolm was not committed. He was not ready to play in the biggest game of the year. He was not ready to do his job and his coach didn't think so either.

Thats all there is is to it.

 

[PatriotsNumero1Fan]

NFL Rumors: Bill Belichick Didn’t Give Malcolm Butler A Reason For Benching

Well that surely doesn't make him look good. He couldn't even tell the guy days before the game that he wasn't playing

 

[RobertWeathers]

It's the freakin Superbowl.

He wasn't ready to play and the coaching staff lost trust in him.

 

[IllegalContact]

Foles made a lot of perfect throws and there were quite a few touch catches, Both catches by Jeffrey seemed difficult as did the Torrie Smith third-down conversion catch on the first drive.

and Agholor was shaking off every body the pats put on him.......but there was this guy on the bench who was a starter and a better at what they needed than anyone else they had.....but they did not even bother to try

anyone thinking this was scheme has a blind love for coach

 

[Simpelton]

I don't know how much this matters, but something I said to myself when I was watching Foles march down the field for the game winning touchdown -- he had Brady eyes.

I wonder if anyone else noticed that. We've all seen that laser focus look as a guy is carrying his team down the field. The look of a man who is willing his team to win and carrying them on his back. Foles had it. He had it for most of the game, and especially I noticed it on that game winning drive in the 4th quarter.

People can argue semantics... once they took Brady away from us at the 2 minute, we weren't winning that game. And if Brady does score there, Foles may have had time to answer anyway.

I think it matters because I honestly believe if #21 was out there, he would have gotten abused too. It's not like it never happened before, and Foles was killing it so bad I don't know if there was any real way to stop him.,

 

[Kargetina]

If it was so bad why did belichick dress him? Just don't activate him. I am not buying any of this crap that he was a nuisance for weeks.

These are the stats against the Jags:

Butler 2/4 for 42 yards and a pass break up
Gilmore 3/5 for 53 yards and a pass break up

Defense allowed 6 points in the second half.

But Butler regressed so much in 10 days that one of the worst corners in the league Bademosi, and one of the worst safeties in the league Richards got to play over him.

Since week 4, the Gilmore Butler led secondary allowed 20 points or more three times, once against the Steelers, once against Miami where the offense didn’t have a single third down conversion and the 20 points against the Jags. They didn’t allowed 30 points or more in a single game.

They had the best scoring defense in the entire league during that period.

Butler doesn’t play a snap and the defense allows 41 points.

That Bill Belichick though, he can’t be wrong, he’s always doing the best for his team, even though all of these facts were true during the third quarter, this defense got destroyed on drive after drive, allowed 32 points up until then...and he still didn’t put him in.

 

[chasa]

He's won 5 Super Bowls, he must be doing something right.

in two of those 5 he let Malcolm butler play more then zero snaps.

The patriots are undefeated in superbowls where butler players more then zero snaps.

 

[PatriotsNumero1Fan]

Everyone is pissed off, sad and upset. I get it.

The only point I'm trying to make is that a winning foundation and culture is not fleeting. It has standards and accountability. To maintain that requires 100% commitment 24x7x365 and has zero room for those who are not committed to the cause.

Malcolm was not committed. He was not ready to play in the biggest game of the year. He was not ready to do his job and his coach didn't think so either.

Thats all there is is to it.

That's such horsesh*t. Did you read the article they just posted. Playing butler gives us a much better chance to win and a chance to get some of those 3rd down stops.