A New Hit-Piece Book on Bill Belichick Claims Mr. Kraft Called Him 'a Fucking Asshole' and Eric Mangini Tried to Throw Fists with Him
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. For all those days of your subjects bending the knee, treating all your wishes as their commands, and standing ready to give their lives to protect you during the prosperous times, as soon as they sense one sign of vulnerability, they see the opportunity to attack. For example, there's one (disputed) account that claims the reason the Hawaiians attacked and killed Captain Cook is that when he was wounded and bled, he lost his status and an invincible, godlike being.
And if we've learned anything over the last 20 years, it's that when the King of the NFL is perceived as exposed in any way, knives are drawn behind his back. It's been this way since the beginning. The Boston Herald's "Duplicitous pond scum." Tom Jackson's "They hate their coach." Trent Dilfer's "They're not good anymore!" Spygate. Deflategate. Helmet Radiogate. Bill Belichick has alternately been portrayed as the biggest cheater on Earth, history's greatest monster, or the product of pure, stupid luck. And I don't know which accusation is the most egregious.
The latest example of this Regicide is a book coming out by ESPN's Seth Wickersham. He's the one who a few years ago claimed that Belichick had the architects who built Gillette Stadium put a video billboard out beyond the lighthouse that can only be seen from the Patriots bench; the better to view replays from. Which would be an explosive accusation were it not for the fact you can't see it from the Patriots bench. Or if they didn't have someone in the coaches' box with the replays six inches in front of his face. That same deep, investigative journalistic hatchet job also claimed the Seahawks were scanning the hills around their Arizona practice field searching for Patriots spies before Super Bowl XLIX.
Wickersham was also the author of the book that claimed Belichick and Tom Brady had a rift starting back when the team drafted Jimmy Garoppolo or whenever. Which, while the overarching premise was pretty much common knowledge, and confirmed Brady's departure - five seasons and three championships later - his report was so full of factual inaccuracies as to be hard to trust. Full of stories about Brady lobbying Mr. Kraft to force the Garoppolo trade. Demanding he be called "Mr. Brady" around team facilities. Being butthurt because he never got the Patriot of the Week Award, which has never existed. Taking away Jimmy G's pass to get into TB12 Fitness. Plus a secret meeting between Belichick and Roger Goodell, that even the Commissioner's office said never happened.
Well, he's at it again with a new book. There's a lot of doubling down on the -Gates. Plus a tripling down of the lunch story, where he now claims Belichick and Ginger Satan are best buds that includes a story of the coach hugging the man who's stolen multiple draft picks from him and lifting him up off his feet. As if.
When he's not painting fanciful word pictures of Johnny Castle and Baby, Wickersham hits a couple of notes that are actually worth reading, in a supermarket tabloid kind of way.
ESPN - "As for Kraft, in late September, he was in Aspen [Colorado] for a conference and bumped into a few friends in the hotel lobby early one morning. He told them he was leaving later for Detroit, where the Patriots were playing their next game. 'I hate leaving here,' Kraft said. 'You leave here and you leave some of the most brilliant people you've ever met. You pick up so much knowledge from all these brilliant minds. And I have to go to Detroit to be with the biggest f-----ng a--hole in my life -- my head coach.' "
"Bill was an idiot savant," Kraft told a confidant, according to the book … "I gave him this opportunity."
And:
At the 2008 league meetings, Belichick and then-New York Jets head coach Eric Mangini nearly had a fistfight. After a dinner for head coaches, Julie Mangini, wife of Eric, bumped into Belichick and said hi, trying to ease tension after the post-Spygate fallout. Belichick blew her off, and when she told Eric what had happened, he charged across the room and needed to be held back by other coaches from swinging at Belichick. "Hey Bill, f--- you!" Mangini yelled.
While I hesitate to give any credibility to these two salacious tidbits given how exaggerated and flat out fictitious so much of the other stories have been, let's assume for the sake of argument they're true. No Pats fan should have any problem with them.
Mr. Kraft calling his head coach "the biggest fucking asshole in my life"? I'll stop him when he says something that's not true. Belichick is a fucking asshole. A big one at that. And exactly the sort of fucking asshole everyone wants on their side, calling the shots and making the tough decisions. History is made by such men. His fucking assholery is what built this Dynasty and the owner recognizes that as much as anyone. I have no doubt Lincoln said the same thing about Sherman and Ike said it about Patton. And then got on their knees and thanked God for giving them assholes like these. You want nice? Buy a dog. Or hire Pete Carroll. Which Mr. Kraft already did, before deciding what kind of head coach he really needed. And if I had a dollar for every time I called a guy I love and I'm grateful to have in my life an asshole, I'd be sipping Macallan in the hot tub on a yacht and lighting a Cohiba with my son's tuition bill instead of burping the alphabet into a keyboard all day.
As for the Mangini story, I can only pray that it is true. That Fredo wanted to throw knucks at the man he betrayed. The man he owes his whole career to. The one he made his son's godfather after giving the boy the middle name William. I only wish the "other coaches" in the story stood down and just said, "Here he is. Go fight it out." Belichick would've eaten his lunch. Not just because he had more reason to be angry - blowing off someone's wife can't hold a flickering candle to getting a 1st round draft pick taken away over nothing - but in that way Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes can kick the ass of henchmen twice his size through the power of his genius. When you can slow down time, figure out the angle of the hypotenuse of a fist flying at your face before even gets there, you can't be defeated.
So this is just the latest of what I'm sure will be many such hit pieces to come out until Belichick rights this ship, develops the next great franchise quarterback of this great franchise he built. It comes with the territory. And as we've learned before, when they come after the king, they always end up missing.
Kiss the Rings.