by John McG, October 30, 2007
Questioned yesterday about why he had his first team offense on the field in the fourth quarter with a 38-0 nothing lead, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick* lashed out at the Washington Redskins, the Patriots' opponent.
"Why don't you go over to their locker room and ask them what they were doing on every single one of our plays? The real story is how every week we face an NFL team that does nothing but try to make us lose." Belichick snapped.
"Watch the game film. On every single play, all 11 Redskins were either trying to prevent us from scoring or trying to score themselves."
Belichick pointed out that when Tom Brady hit Wes Welker on a 2 yard touchdown pass with 9:00 left in the fourth quarter to make the score 45-0, several Redskins players could be seen both trying to sack Brady before he could pass the ball, and trying to prevent Welker from making the catch, to the point of even trying to intercept the pass themselves.
"What ever happened to cooperation?" Belichick mused. "Everyone knows that interest in the NFL increases when there's a dominant team. But everyone seems to just be out there for themselves."
Belichick had no comment when a reporter mentioned that his Patriots had thwarted dominant seasons by the Rams, Steelers, Colts, and Chargers.
Belichick cited evidence that the Redskins were even coordinating their efforts, signaling to each other and running set plays in order to defeat the Patriots. He said that such treatment leaves him little choice but to score as many points as possible, and break the "rules" in order to evade this conspiracy.
Belichick said he expects similar treatment in next week's match-up against the Indianapolis Colts, coach Tony Dungy's "nice guy" image notwithstanding.
* Belichick was originally spelled Belicheck throughout the article.
John McG. is a father and software engineer living in St. Louis, MO. He blogs at Man Bites Blog.