Should auld acquaintance be forgot?
That’s the question we ask in song each New Year’s Eve. This year, in Buffalo, the question carries extra weight.
Bill Belichick is coming to Highmark Stadium, where his Patriots will put the New England into New Year’s Eve. He’s about as auld an acquaintance as Buffalo Bills fans have. Belichick was the New York Giants’ defensive coordinator when they slowed the Bills’ K-Gun offense in Super Bowl XXV. He has been head coach of the Pats since, oh, the beginning of this millennium. And, as if you need reminding, he has had more than a little success against the Bills.
Sunday’s visit is potentially his last here as the Pats’ coach. Speculation runs rampant that his tenure with the team will end soon after this season does. Folks in New England spend so much time reading those tea leaves that they have enough for another Boston Tea Party.
Greg Bedard, of Boston Sports Journal, said on radio the other day that Pats owner Robert Kraft is “quote-unquote conflicted” about what to do. But if Belichick is a goner in New England, he’ll likely end up coaching elsewhere. He’s still Bill Belichick, after all, and some coach-needy NFL teams are bound to have him at the top of their wish lists.
Then there is the small matter of the career wins record for NFL coaches. Don Shula — speaking of auld Buffalo antagonists — is alone in first place with 347 wins, including playoffs. Belichick is in second with 333. He wants to coach until he passes Shula. Not that he says so out loud, but longtime observers say of course he wants that.
Bob Ryan, “the quintessential American sportswriter,” as Tony Kornheiser calls him, spoke on Kornheiser’s podcast this week. Ryan called Belichick’s pursuit of Shula “the elephant in the room.” Then he corrected himself; the better metaphor, he said, is “the white whale.”
The reference, of course, is to Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick.” (Steelkilt, one of the novel’s minor characters,…
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