Pats Preview: Week 14
Some NFL analysts study trends. Others study stats. Our man, Gonz, does neither. But that won’t stop him from breaking down each week’s Patriots’ game. His picks are for amusement purposes only, since last year he dropped a small fortune to the world’s worst bookie.
This is getting out of control. A lot of people have been mad at the Patriots this season for various infractions, real and perceived. Let’s see, first people were upset about SpyGate. Then they were angry about the Pats running up the score. Most recently, everyone’s been talking about how the refs are doing everything they can to help New England win. Naturally, all of that has provided plenty of fodder for the usual Pats sycophants.
But as grating as that mindless back and forth between the Pats Colony and the rest of America is, I’ve grown used to it. (By the way, I’m working on trademarking “Pats Colony;” until then, try it out at a party free of charge.) What I haven’t grown used to, what needs to stop immediately, is the aggravating use of this latest edition to our collective lexicon: “Belichickian.”
At some point during the season, a special kind of idiot went so far as to compare New England front man Bill Belichick to former Celtics Hall of Fame coach Red Auerbach. That, of course, was sheer madness considering that Auerbach won nine championships while, last I checked, Belichick has won three. (Doing the math, that makes Auerbach at least three times better than Belichick. You’re welcome.)
That was bad enough. But right around that time, the maddening use of the word “Belichickian” became too blatant to ignore. I’ve hoped against hope that people would abandon this practice. But, if anything, the word seems omnipresent now, as though it spread like some kind of terrible, unstoppable virus, laying waste to the minds of right-thinking people everywhere.
It wasn’t truly alarming, though, until some Jets fans — Jets fans! — wondered aloud if New York coach Eric Mangini was running a “Belichickian” defense. Had it stopped there, it would have been loathsome, but manageable.
Oh, but it didn’t stop there. Suddenly, smart people like Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi were referring to Hillary Clinton’s “almost Belichickian level of smugness,” and Slate was talking about a “Belichickian worldview.” Alas, our very own magazine was recently inflicted with the sickness, too. Not even the grand expanse of the Atlantic Ocean could protect some from the madness. Eurobasket.com also caught the disease, unable to help itself when it used the word to describe the sorry state of USA basketball.
And this, friends, is where I openly invite you to deal a Belichickian blow to my noggin and spare me from the misery.
The Pick: If only the Steelers could end the lunacy and force people to talk about something other than the Pats. If only…New England 35, Pittsburgh 28.
