Bill Belichick Isn't Telling The Whole Story About Why He Drafted Gronk

When they announced this series I became incredibly excited to hear Bill Belichick talk about the football players throughout history that he truly admires and considers good. The most we hear him talk about is the game that just happened or the game about to happen in seven days, and he says the same thing about each of those every single week. “We’ve got a lot to work on. We’ve got a real good opponent coming in next week that we have to be ready for.” doesn’t exactly get the juices flowing like it once did. Now, up to this point in the NFL 100 there have been some incredible Belichick moments, most notably when he was speaking about LT and Ed Reed. Tremendous admiration for some of the game’s greats. And then it came to a guy who retired this calendar year, one he and only he coached for the entirety of his professional career. Rich Eisen tried to pull back the curtain and Bill told him, and America, to fuck themselves.

Rich Eisen: Bill why don’t you take us back to the beginning what did you see pre-draft that made you want one of the HUNDRED BEST FOOTBALL PLAYERS OF ALL TIME?

Bill Belichick: Well, to be honest with you, I didn’t see a whole lot. He went to Arizona, that was strike one. While at Arizona he stunk, barely played, almost no tape on this guy. And the tape that did exist was hardly even worth watching. So naturally we brought him in for a visit. During his visit he passed out face first on the floor, not even one of our more comfortable floors. To this day I still don’t understand where he got that lamp shade that was stuck around his neck like a dog that just got its balls cut off but that’s none of my business. Naturally we traded up for him in the Draft.

Fucking HUH??? What kind of scouting report is that? “Guy was bad, decent form on his sleep but outside of that no real skills jumped out at us” is not something I’m willing to accept as the official pre-draft read on the greatest tight end who ever walked this planet. There’s a massive piece of the puzzle left out of this story and it feels intentional. Like he was really asleep on the floor because he stayed up all night drawing different tight end seam routes and blocking patterns on a hundred white boards in that room he passed out in. Something. And I respect Belichick holding that tidbit close to the vest, he’s still got drafts in his future and can’t be giving away all of his tricks just because of some list. But, personally, for selfish reasons, I need to know what really sold him on TRADING UP for the greatest tight end of all time outside of it being some divine “shot in the dark.”