{"id":12019,"date":"2018-02-06T22:53:47","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T22:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/?p=12019"},"modified":"2018-02-07T08:00:02","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T08:00:02","slug":"bill-walsh-calls-belichick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Walsh Calls Belichick"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of course I watched the Super Bowl. I\u2019m an admirer of Bill Belichick. I enjoy watching him coach and assume he loved watching me guide the 49ers for ten seasons. Honestly, I don\u2019t feel any competitive fire when I think about him. Oh, there is some tension, I suppose. I\u2019m tired of all these young analysts and fans calling him the greatest football coach of all time. What about Vince Lombardi and several others? What about me? <\/p>\n

I know Bill Belichick\u2019s suffering but I better call and clarify matters. <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHello, Bill. This is Bill Walsh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty busy, Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to offer my condolences. I know it must be extremely difficult to blow three Super Bowls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI beg your pardon,\u201d says Belichick. \u201cYou know I\u2019ve won five. Last I counted, you had three.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019d stayed one more season, in 1989, I would\u2019ve had another ring, guaranteed. My team \u2013 and it was still mine \u2013 destroyed the league that year. And if I\u2019d continued several more seasons, I\u2019d probably have six Super Bowl rings or so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd why didn\u2019t you continue, Coach Walsh?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thoroughly exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right. You were physically spent, and, more pertinently, you were an emotional basket case. I often feared you were going to faint or cry or both.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI must concede you\u2019re rather more sturdy than I.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDamn right. You struggled to last a decade. I\u2019ve been an NFL head coach for twenty-three seasons, eighteen straight for the unequalled New England Patriots. You\u2019re too delicate and high strung to have coached nearly that long. I grant that Montana, unlike you, was Joe Cool, but he wasn\u2019t nearly as durable as Tom Brady.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou two are like Eastern European oxen, forever pulling the plow over hard fields in all weather. I commend you, but I can\u2019t fathom teams coached by Bill Walsh three times squandering leads late in the fourth quarters of Super Bowls. The only time we trailed late, against Cincinnati after the 1988 season, we staged a miracle comeback.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA one-touchdown comeback. Weren\u2019t you watching last year when we trailed Atlanta twenty-eight to three in the second half? Your comeback, by comparison, was merely excellent but not a Belichickian miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d call it a Brady miracle. Besides, I would\u2019ve never trailed by so much in a Super Bowl. My players performed liked precision commandos in the biggest games.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike when the New York Giants, whom I coordinated defensively, annihilated you forty-nine to three in the 1986 playoffs?\u201d<\/p>\n

To an empty room I present an upturned palm. \u201cA difficult day, I confess. But we never went more than three seasons without a title. You had a dry decade.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cDuring which we made the playoffs every year but one and lost those two great games to the Giants that you gloat over. Also keep in mind, I\u2019ve won seventy-five percent of my games spanning this century with the Patriots. You only won sixty-one percent with the 49ers.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wish I could cut him with my grimace as I say, \u201cThat figure, as you surely know, is skewed by the two and fourteen record my first year with the 49ers. You took over a team that Pete Carroll had coached to an eight and eight record, and you promptly tanked to five and eleven. That gave you five losing seasons in your first six, counting your failures in Cleveland.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad I\u2019m not a Stanford alum, Coach Walsh, or I\u2019d still be wincing over those two seven-loss seasons that forced you out of coaching in 1994.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t forced out. I quit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou quit because some of your players revolted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI quit because in those days Stanford couldn\u2019t get the players I needed to excel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid Shaw now gets those players every year,\u201d says Belichick.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m confident no team coached by David would ever surrender more than five hundred yards in a Super Bowl as yours did to Philadelphia the other day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen maybe David Shaw should be a head coach in the NFL.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019d be a good one,\u201d I say, \u201cbut probably not as good as you or me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it\u2019s you, me, and Lombardi, with me first since I’m blessed with superior stamina,\u201d says Bill Belichick.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasketball and Football\u201d on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBasketball and Football\u201d on Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and Wherever Books are sold<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of course I watched the Super Bowl. I\u2019m an admirer of Bill Belichick. I enjoy watching him coach and assume he loved watching me guide the 49ers for ten seasons. Honestly, I don\u2019t feel any competitive fire when I think about him. Oh, there is some tension, I suppose. I\u2019m tired of all these young…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1267,198,1711,11,1244,1712,1713,318,1714,820,1272,1715],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nBill Walsh Calls Belichick - George Thomas Clark<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bill Walsh Calls Belichick - George Thomas Clark\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Of course I watched the Super Bowl. I\u2019m an admirer of Bill Belichick. I enjoy watching him coach and assume he loved watching me guide the 49ers for ten seasons. Honestly, I don\u2019t feel any competitive fire when I think about him. Oh, there is some tension, I suppose. I\u2019m tired of all these young…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"George Thomas Clark\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GeorgeThomasClark\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GeorgeThomasClark\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-06T22:53:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-02-07T08:00:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/fallback-website-image-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"George Thomas Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"George Thomas Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"George Thomas Clark\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9d4714bec6454ae4cacd87e09567283e\"},\"headline\":\"Bill Walsh Calls Belichick\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-02-06T22:53:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-02-07T08:00:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/\"},\"wordCount\":750,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9d4714bec6454ae4cacd87e09567283e\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Bill Belichick\",\"Bill Walsh\",\"David Shaw\",\"Football\",\"Joe Montana\",\"New England Patriots\",\"New York Giants\",\"Pete Carroll\",\"Philadelphia Eagles\",\"San Francisco 49ers\",\"Tom Brady\",\"Vince Lombardi\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/\",\"name\":\"Bill Walsh Calls Belichick - George Thomas Clark\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-02-06T22:53:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-02-07T08:00:02+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Bill Walsh Calls Belichick\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/\",\"name\":\"George Thomas Clark\",\"description\":\"An author who fuses fiction, history, and current events\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9d4714bec6454ae4cacd87e09567283e\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9d4714bec6454ae4cacd87e09567283e\",\"name\":\"George Thomas Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/logo.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/logo.svg\",\"width\":\"1024\",\"height\":\"1024\",\"caption\":\"George Thomas Clark\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\"},\"description\":\"George Thomas Clark is the author of Hitler Here, a biographical novel published in India and the Czech Republic as well as the United States. His commentaries for GeorgeThomasClark.com are read in more than 50 countries a month.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GeorgeThomasClark\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/author\/gtc\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bill Walsh Calls Belichick - George Thomas Clark","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bill Walsh Calls Belichick - George Thomas Clark","og_description":"Of course I watched the Super Bowl. I\u2019m an admirer of Bill Belichick. I enjoy watching him coach and assume he loved watching me guide the 49ers for ten seasons. Honestly, I don\u2019t feel any competitive fire when I think about him. Oh, there is some tension, I suppose. I\u2019m tired of all these young…","og_url":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/","og_site_name":"George Thomas Clark","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GeorgeThomasClark","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GeorgeThomasClark","article_published_time":"2018-02-06T22:53:47+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-02-07T08:00:02+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/fallback-website-image-2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"George Thomas Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"George Thomas Clark","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/"},"author":{"name":"George Thomas Clark","@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9d4714bec6454ae4cacd87e09567283e"},"headline":"Bill Walsh Calls Belichick","datePublished":"2018-02-06T22:53:47+00:00","dateModified":"2018-02-07T08:00:02+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/"},"wordCount":750,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9d4714bec6454ae4cacd87e09567283e"},"articleSection":["Bill Belichick","Bill Walsh","David Shaw","Football","Joe Montana","New England Patriots","New York Giants","Pete Carroll","Philadelphia Eagles","San Francisco 49ers","Tom Brady","Vince Lombardi"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/","url":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/","name":"Bill Walsh Calls Belichick - George Thomas Clark","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-02-06T22:53:47+00:00","dateModified":"2018-02-07T08:00:02+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/bill-walsh-calls-belichick\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bill Walsh Calls Belichick"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/","name":"George Thomas Clark","description":"An author who fuses fiction, history, and current events","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9d4714bec6454ae4cacd87e09567283e"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9d4714bec6454ae4cacd87e09567283e","name":"George Thomas Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/logo.svg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/logo.svg","width":"1024","height":"1024","caption":"George Thomas Clark"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/"},"description":"George Thomas Clark is the author of Hitler Here, a biographical novel published in India and the Czech Republic as well as the United States. His commentaries for GeorgeThomasClark.com are read in more than 50 countries a month.","sameAs":["https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GeorgeThomasClark"],"url":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/author\/gtc\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12019"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12026,"href":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019\/revisions\/12026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}