STAMFORD, CT: Happy Columbus Indigenous Peoples’ Day. I’m normally not one for digging into the closets of revered historical figures and cancelling them when you find a skeleton or two. But if there’s one mother-sucker who deserves to be cancelled, it’s Christopher Columbus. According to his own diary, this scumbag would cut of the hands of natives who did not bring him enough gold. Even by the sub-optimal standards of the 15th century, this guy was a piece of crap. And he did exactly none of the things he gets credit for, even among Europeans. The Greek mathematician Eratosthenes proved the Earth was round somewhere around 250 BC. That’s about 17 centuries before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And Leif Erickson, the Norse Viking, landed in North America a good 500 years before Columbus. And Columbus died thinking that he had landed in India. To recap, he didn’t prove the earth was round, wasn’t the first European to land in the Americas, and never even knew he landed on a new continent. The guy was nothing more than a murderous pillaging thief who took credit for things done by others centuries earlier. Did I tell you guys I invented the wheel? Screw that guy, Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day! Wait. You know, except for the ones that would cut out the hearts of living humans on top of pyramids. Not them. Anyway, speaking of frauds who should be cancelled, or at least asterisked, I want to talk about Bill Belichick. It may be time to revoke his “best coach ever” status, based on the sad sack state of the Patriots and new information that’s come to light.
When the evil combination of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick broke up, I thought we might get some answers as to which of the two super villains deserved more credit for the team’s unprecedented run of success. And have we ever. TB12 promptly won another Super Bowl with Tampa and the Patriots promptly went into the toilet.
Former Denver Broncos player DJ Williams recently went on a podcast and spoke about the team’s 6-0 start in 2009 under Josh McDaniels, previously employed as the Offensive Coordinator under Belichick in New England. Though Williams didn’t seem to get the timeline exactly right, the Broncos were caught filming the 49ers practice walk through in London. Though the incident happened in 2010, it’s extremely unlikely that was an isolated incident and the illegally gained intel surely contributed to the 6-0 start. McDaniel was fired before the end of the 2010 season after the team collapsed. Winning is hard when you don’t know the other team’s plays.
When the “Spygate” scandal erupted in 2007, Roger Goodell had the video evidence destroyed. His convoluted explanation for why he did it was an obviously lie. Only the guilty destroy evidence. Here was an organization choosing to protect itself and its image over doing the right thing, as they always do. Goodell couldn’t allow that dark stain on all those championships.
The most obviously false part was Goodell’s claim that any advantage gained by the Patriots from the cheating was minor. Oh really? They sure went through a lot of trouble for it then. This never passed the smell test and it makes you wonder about how many games they won by this ill-gotten intel.
The case against this is that the Patriots still did well after Spygate when they presumably no longer had access to the other teams’ walk throughs. But the Pats managed to remain one step ahead of the opposition, somehow. Take this quote from Malcolm Butler about his famous interception in the Super Bowl when Pete Carroll did not give it to Marshawn Lynch on the one yard line. Butler said he was told in practice, when the scout team ran a similar goal line play, “if you see that formation, you have to jump it.” Hmm, quite prescient.
The present day Pats are a joke and just got shutout by the mediocre Saints. They have very little talent on offense and Mac Jones has all the skills of a clipboard-holder. The drafting has been poor and Belichick has been making some head scratching decisions, like letting defensive and special teams coaches coach the offense last year. (Though having a regular O-coordinator this year doesn’t seem to be helping.) They might be the worst team in the league. I feel terribly for him…
As the losses and bad draft picks pile up, it will continue to chip away at BB’s legacy. The formula for his success may have been Tom Brady and a whole lot of cheating. Bill had better put together a decent post-Brady team before he calls it quits or… Tear down the statues!
That’s it for me. Speaking of frauds, Ward is here manana.
