Belichick doesn't think about Jets job
New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick smiles as he watches his team practice. (Jan 12, 2011) Credit: AP
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - Ever wonder how different the last 11 years might have been had Bill Belichick not abruptly resigned as the Jets' head coach on the day he was to be introduced with the job? Belichick doesn't.
"I haven't thought much about it," the Patriots' coach said Wednesday when asked about the decision that changed the course of the two franchises that will meet in Sunday's divisional playoff game. "I didn't think it would work at the time, so that's why I made that decision."
It was 11 years ago last week - Jan. 5, 2000 - that Belichick scribbled his intentions on a sheet of loose-leaf paper in the shorthand that shook the Jets up. "I resign as HC of the NYJ" he wrote, and then held a news conference with reporters who were assembled expecting to interview the man Bill Parcells had chosen as his replacement.
Later that month, Belichick was hired as HC of the NEP. The Jets received a first-round pick in that spring's draft from the Patriots and the Patriots went on to win three Super Bowls under Belichick.
While it wasn't the first tremor in the uneasy relationship between the two organizations - Parcells and running back Curtis Martin jumping from the Patriots to the Jets preceded it - the Belichick resignation and subsequent hiring by the Patriots certainly cemented much of the vitriol that the teams exhibit to this day. From Belichick disowning Eric Mangini, to Spygate, right up to Antonio Cromartie's thoughts on Tom Brady that were expressed this week, the Jets-Patriots rivalry has become one of the most toxic and furious in the NFL, perhaps in all of sports.
But no, Belichick doesn't think much about it.
