Patriots coach Bill Belichick marches to the tune of his own drum. It has worked out pretty well, what with him about to make a record seventh Super Bowl appearance as a head coach, thanks to New England's 36-17 victory over the Steelers Sunday.
Vegas was installing the Pats as slight favorites over the Falcons (who pummeled Green Bay 44-21 in the NFC title game) during the fourth quarter, but Belichick said after the game he still had no idea who won.
As in, when he was asked about playing the Falcons in the Super Bowl, he says that's when he found out that's who he was playing.
"No, I mean I didn't even know they won," Belichick said. "We didn't see the first game. Obviously they're a great team or they wouldn't be playing in this game. They've had a great year."
That's pretty hard to believe -- it's 2017. You'd think he would have someone fire up InstaChat and figure out who the Patriots would be playing. Belichick likes to maximize his efficiency against opponents, so it's hard to believe he wouldn't ask someone on the field after the AFC Championship Game who won.
On the other hand, it's pretty believable that Belichick, a singularly-focused human, was too worried about dealing with the Steelers to worry about who they might be playing in two weeks.
"Yeah, we were focused on this game," Belichick said. "I mean that game, if we didn't win this game then that game didn't make any difference."
In this case, he couldn't be more accurate. Anyone who spends time worrying about a future opponent in a game that won't occur if they lose is probably destined to fall short of their goal.
Also, it's not like there was a ton of time in between these games. Maybe if it's 1 p.m. ET and 8 p.m. ET Belichick gets a score check in. But with 3:05 p.m. ET for the Falcons game kicking off and 6:40 p.m. ET for the Patriots game kicking off, there wasn't a lot of time to sit around and analyze a hypothetical future opponent.
All of this is still perfectly Belichick though. Both teams played hard, we're on to Houston, etc.
