Typically tight-lipped, Bill Belichick is on to the 2018 season. So don’t ask him about Malcolm Butler’s surprising and still unexplained benching in the Super Bowl. Do not do it. It will not work.
Belichick arrived Sunday at the NFL’s annual meeting in Orlando and was unusually chatty with a group of New England reporters — except for that Super Bowl thing.
“I have a lot of respect for Malcolm,” Belichick said (via NBC Sports Boston). “From the day he got here in rookie minicamp four years ago, he’s always competed as hard as he could. He always has been a great competitor on the field. and I totally respect that.
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“I’m not going to get into last year. I’m not going to get into next year or some other year. I talked to Malcolm. I wished him well in Tennessee. Obviously, [Titans Coach Mike Vrabel and General Manager Jon Robinson] are great people that I have a lot of respect for in that organization, and I have a lot of respect for Malcolm. We wish him well.”
The hero of the 2015 Super Bowl, Butler agreed to a five-year, $61 million contract with the Titans early this month. He had been listed on the injury report with illness the week before New England’s February Super Bowl loss to the Eagles. The cornerback later said he had had the flu, and he barely played in the Super Bowl as the Eagles scored 41 points in an upset win.
But that was last year on the Belichick/NFL calendar, even though it was, technically, this year. A new season looms, which means there are questions about this year. Like, will Rob Gronkowski retire? What is going on with Tom Brady’s psyche? What about the reports of soap opera-like discord between Brady and Belichick?
Brady went into full dark-night-of-the-soul mode after the Super Bowl, saying in the last installment of his “Tom vs. Time” video series: “It’s a big commitment, laying here three days after the game and getting my Achilles’ worked on and my thumb. You go, ‘What are we doing this for?’ You know? ‘What are we doing this for, who are we doing this for, why are we doing this?’ You got to have answers to those questions. And they have to be with a lot of conviction. You know, when you lose your conviction, then you probably should be doing something else.”
Belichick said he plans to listen to Brady rather than try to read the tea leaves.
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“So I’ve had direct conversations with Tom many times over a long period of time,” Belichick said. “I’ll rely on those conversations I have with him directly rather than something else. Tom and I have always had a good line of communication; we’ve always been able to talk directly with each other. I don’t see that changing. I’ll rely on those instead of … anything else.”
Belichick was asked by Tom E. Curran of NBC Sports Boston how Brady has changed over their 19-year relationship, and he offered a Darwinian response.
“Everything’s an evolution, and everything’s different. Things change,” Belichick said. “Guys go from not being experienced to experienced. We all have a lot of things along the way that happen to us, and we all learn from them. We’re always evolving. It evolves every year. Every day, every week, every month, every game plan.”
So what about Gronk and reports that he might retire? That would surely shake up the ol’ apple cart, right? Nope. This is Belichick’s apple cart.
“I’m not going to speak for anybody else,” he told Curran. “Conversations I’ve had with the players — and I’ve had a lot of them — I’m going to keep those private between myself and the player. I’ll respect that coach-to-player conversation. I don’t want to speak for anybody else.”
And were the Patriots perhaps considering their options if Gronkowski does retire?
“Trying to get the slider coming in over the outside corner?” Belichick joked. “Yeah. I think I just covered that.”
Got it.
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