Friday might just mark the end of an era. It could be the very last time Bill Belichick holds a weekday press conference as head coach of the New England Patriots.
After 24 seasons, hundreds of non-answers and plenty of memorable moments, we may be witnessing the end of one part of Belichick’s legendary run in New England.
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Belichick is famous for his legendary resumé as a coach on the field. But he’s also developed a unique reputation for the way he conducts himself with media off of it. You’re just as likely to see a clip of him hoisting a Lombardi Trophy as you are to see him giving a death glare to a reporter.
This all comes from a place of sincerity. I’ve been covering Belichick and the Patriots regularly since I arrived at MassLive in 2013. I still remember the first time I got a death glare of my own — and the first time I ever got him to chuckle. It’s been a blast (if infuriating at times) to cover the team during his time here.
Belichick is a titan of the NFL and has put together perhaps the most successful and memorable coaching tenure in the history of the game. So if this weekend is really his last game before he parts ways with the Patriots, let’s take a moment to remember his famously dry press conference stylings — and the best “Belichick-isms” he’d bring out.
Patriots-Jets anti-analysis
I’m not here to analyze the Patriots game this Sunday. That sounds like actual work Chris Mason, Mark Daniels, Karen Guregian or Matt Vautour would do (suckers). Instead, I’m here to point out some observations and general tidbits that have at least a tangential connection to Sunday’s game. Well, just one this week. It’s a big one.
The greatest Belichick-isms of all time
Listen to any press conference Belichick has ever given and see how many of these you hear. It’s wild how well he sticks to his go-to phrases. Here are all the great Belichick-isms I’ve put together over the years:
39. Referring to the red zone as the “red area” – This one always intrigued me. You’ll never hear him refer to the 20 yards outside the endzone at the “red zone.” It’s always the “red area.”
38. “Good to come out of here with a win.” / “Our team played well today.” / “Just a good team effort” / “Give our players credit.” – If the Patriots win, you’re going to hear some combination of these phrases.
37. “We didn’t do anything well enough today to deserve to win.” / “Just wasn’t good enough.” / “We’ve got to do a better job.” / “We just didn’t make enough plays.” – On the flip side, if the Patriots lose, you’re going to hear a Mad Libs of these phrases.
36. “_____ is a good football team.” – This line could and would be applied to any team the Patriots have ever played.
35. “_____ can make all the throws.” – Credit to the Boston Herald’s Andrew Callahan for pointing out Belichick’s tendency to say this about quarterbacks who aren’t very good. You tend to hear this one a lot when he talks about Jets quarterbacks like Sam Darnold and Zach Wilson.
34. “We’ve still got a long way to go.” / “Certainly a lot of things we can do better.” – Did the Patriots win a game? Did they have a good practice? That’s nice. Don’t get too excited.
33. “We obviously have a lot of confidence in _____.” – This phrase can be used to describe a player who had an awesome game or didn’t play at all. Doesn’t matter who they are.
32. “He’s done a good job for us.” / “He’s done whatever we’ve asked him to do.” – Belichick will unerringly use one of these lines when talking about someone the team just brought in. It could be a first-round pick, a star free agent, a new assistant coach, a groundskeeper, hot dog seller, doesn’t matter.
31. “It’s the National Football League.” – Not the NFL. The National Football League.
30. “They do a good job of it.” / “_____ made a good play.” – A “good job” or “good play” can be used to describe everything from showing up to meetings on time to breaking nine tackles on a game-winning touchdown.
29. “I’ll keep that between me and the players like I always do.” – What did Belichick say to another coach or player? We’ll never know. He will never snitch.
28. “Good complementary football.” / “Good situational football.” – These are the two things that win games.
27. “We play just about everybody who’s active.” / “He wasn’t active.” / “We activated the players that would put us in the best position to win.” – Why didn’t someone play? This is the extent of what you’re going to find out.
26. “I thought that our team competed.” / “I’m proud of the way that our guys competed.” / “Competed for 60 minutes.” – This is Belichick Speak for a close game, win or lose.
25. “Coaches coach. Players play.” – Sometimes he likes to point out the obvious.
24. “We’ve just got to coach better. We’ve got to play better.” – Say what you want about Belichick, he puts as much blame on himself and the coaching staff as he does the players.
23. “Come on, what are we talking about here?” – This is a personal favorite of mine. It comes up whenever Belichick wants to pick apart an aspect of a question he thinks is silly.
22. “Showed a lot of mental toughness.” – This one isn’t flashy, but it’s one of his most-used phrases.
21. “You’ll have to ask the officials.” / “You’d have to ask him that.” – If you ask a question that is about someone else, involves someone else or just can be pinned one someone else who’s in the room, this is the answer you might get.
20. “The practice report comes out on Wednesday.” – How’s a certain injured player doing? Don’t worry, Belichick will make sure you get a copy of the practice report when it comes out.
19. “We did what we thought was best for the team.” – If you hear this phrase once, you’re probably going to hear it multiple times during a press conference.
18. “No days off.” – One of my favorite clips is Belichick chanting “No days off” to a crowd of Patriots fans who all took the day off the celebrate a Super Bowl parade.
17. “We’re just focused on getting ready for _____” / “We’re just focused on this game.” – What’s that, there’s an offseason that is front-page news? Why are you asking about that when the Patriots have a big game against a 3-11 Falcons team coming up?
16. “That’s a medical question.” / “What do I look like, a doctor?” – Belichick is here to coach the team, not look at MRIs. That’s not his job.
15. “I’ll have to look at the film.” – What happened out there on the field? Who knows? He has to look at the film first if you want specifics.
14. “I’ve already talked about that.” – Fun fact: Whenever Belichick says this, he usually has not actually talked about that. He just doesn’t want to.
13. Dead silence – Back in 2020, Belichick responded to a question about timeouts by saying, “Yeah, well,” followed by 23 seconds of dead silence before Patriots PR called on another reporter. That was it. Imagine someone else trying to do that anywhere else.
12. “I don’t know.” – Most of the time, Belichick will have a bland, non-descript answer to get out of most situations. Sometimes, he’s just grumpy or frustrated and doesn’t have time to think of one.
11. “No one works harder than _____.” – Belichick is constantly saying this about different players. According to PatsPulpit in 2022, Belichick has said “No one works harder than” 37 different players during his time in New England.
10a. Fawning over a player on the other team. – Every now and then, Belichick will go out of his way to praise a player on the other team. The most famous example of this was Ed Reed on the Ravens.
10. Bonus: Fawning over the other team’s punter. – Belichick piling on praise for guys like Johnny Hekker and Thomas Morstead is the stuff of legend. “Weapon.”
9. Praising Lawrence Taylor out of nowhere. – Belichick coached Taylor during his time with the Giants and will scoff at the idea of any defensive player being as good as him: “This is Lawrence Taylor we’re talking about.”
8. The stonewall – Sometimes this comes in the form of a short or even one-word answer. Sometimes, you’ll get an answer along the lines of “Yeah, no.” Whatever form it takes, it’s going to be a useless quote.
7. Friday Bill / The Random History Lessons – Belichick is famous for randomly coming out with history lectures about football. This has ranged from the history of long snappers to the intricacies of Virginia lacrosse in the 70′s. You never know when it’s going to happen. You just have to hang on for the ride.
6. Hating on social media: “SnapFace” “MyFace” “InstantFace” “InstaChat” – Few things in the world interest Bill Belichick less than social media. If he names a social media platform that exists, it’s probably an accident.
5. Hating on weather forecasts – Belichick does not have much confidence in meteorologists. He has a long track record of dragging them, claiming “they’re almost always wrong.”
4. “All three phases of the game: offense, defense, special teams” / “The kicking game.” – Just in case you forgot what the three phases of the game are, Belichick usually lists them for you.
3. “It is what it is.” – This Belichick-ism was more prominent during the early days of Belichick’s tenure. But it’s a timeless classic.
2. “Do your job.” – These three words more or less sum up Belichick’s coaching mantra. So why isn’t No. 1?
1. “We’re on to Cincinnati.” – There are other Belichick-isms. But nothing on this list had the impact of, “We’re on to Cincinnati.” It was more than a response to a question (or six). It was a force of nature that summed up 24 years of not answering questions.
You can use this phrase anywhere. It doesn’t even have to be about Cincinnati, or football. You can say this phrase in a normal conversation with a Patriots fan and they won’t even bat an eye.
