I love that Bill Belichick has leaned into his new life as a foꦫotball an🌺alyst.
The former New England Patriots head coach is honest in his assessments and has been enjoyable in the media spots I’ve seen him do to this point.
With that being said, Belichick’s honesty didn’t spare Chicago Bears fans who are over the moon in anticipation of Caleb Williams’ first regular-season start. Chicago’s QB1 has yet to impress the future Hall of Fame coach. He made that much known here in this now-viral clip from the latest episode of Inside the NFL on the CW ():
Bill Belichick wasn’t impressed by Caleb Williams through his two preseason games with the Chicago Bears.
“Well, he wasn’t accurate, he was 10-for-20,” Belichick said. “There were a couple of highlight plays, but they weren’t that good.”
(🎥: ) — Kinnu Singh (@ByKinnuSingh)
Bill Belichick on Bears rookie QB Caleb Williams
Bill Belichick’s reasoning as to why he wasn’t impressed with Caleb Williams:
Oof. This is the kind of thing that will take the wind out of the sails of folks who were flying high on the back of Caleb Williams’ preseason highlights.
I feel as if the interpretation of Bill Belichick’s sentiment would’ve been different had he framed it in another way. For me, watching (and re-watching) the clip has Belichick giving off vibes that he simply wasn’t going to be impressed by any kind of preseason performance. After all, this is Bill Freaking Belichick we’re talking about. One of the winningest head coaches in professional sports history who had the greatest quarterback slinging it. Frankly, i don’t expect him to be impressed by 40something preseason snaps from a rookie quarterback — no matter what his prospect pedigree looks like.
But it’s the framing of using preseason stats the way he did that makes it seem like he was box-score scouting. To be clear, I’m not saying Belichick *WAS* box score scouting. But as someone familiar with those arguments because of how much time I’ve spent hearing them on Twitter, it felt all too familiar.
I didn’t finish the Patriots documentary that was on Apple TV. But one thing that stood out to me during it was how Bill Belichick was not one to shower Tom Brady with praise. Even after some of Brady’s best games, Belichick was still able to find things for his QB to improve upon for the next game. And while I imagine that became grating at some point, we all know now that TB12 is the type to use any small thing as motivation. So it isn’t much of a stretch to envision Brady taking a sight from his head coach and using it to fuel his competitive fire. Maybe Caleb Williams can do the same.
