041724 400 The Best Damn Sports Segment Period

Don Van Natta has struck again with a story on Bill Belichick and his attempt at finding a new team to coach! Will Belichick coach for the Cowboys in the next year or two??   

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm excited for your next segment,Julie. I actually just ran to my

(00:02):
high school bully not too long ago, and the circumstance in which I did
run into him would indicate that Iwas a bit more successful career wise,
and the crummy party me kind offelt good about that, but then I
was immediately humbled afterwards by the wayhe approached me and apologized for all the
stuff he had done and did takethe hell of a guy to do that,
and I could see the relief onhis face when I told him not

(00:24):
to worry about it. So Ihope he's doing well on the bullying talk.
I just want to weigh in andsay, it is a tough line
to walk. We have tried tomake our son be so kind and sweet
and not bullied to the point thatit is now backfired and he's constantly getting
in trouble or bullied because he justwants to parent and yell at everybody and

(00:48):
say, hey, stop doing that, which I guess we went too far.
What do you do? It's thespeak easy on ninety seven one,
the freak fine line man, veryfine line in parenting. Good luck all
right, mister Dallas is going tobe coming up here in just a little

(01:10):
bit, and I believe I'm notsure about this, but I did talk
to him earlier today and he sayshe's got a few more quick hit items
for us. He did that yesterdayhelp us, and he seems to have
liked the way it went, nearas I can tell. Anyway, you

(01:33):
really can't tell anything about him,Yeah, yeah, yeah, But anyway,
he'll be along in just a bitand we'll get into that and see
what he's got for us. Butright now, we do know we have
this. This is the best damnsmart Oh my god. I think we're

(01:56):
about to see a really really funversion of Bill Belichick over the next ten
months. That's my prediction based onwhat I read today and what so.
He's going to do a bunch ofstuff. He's going to do a bunch
of stuff. He is going tobe very visible, and the Bill Belichick
that you think you know, he'sgoing to be very different. I think

(02:22):
you were about to see a verysmiling, very fun, very light Bill
Belichick for the next ten months,which people I've heard and read from people
who know him that if you doknow him and if you are in his
inner circle, he's really like that. He's a lot more like that than

(02:45):
he is as we see him.But that's I don't know, that's just
something people say. I don't youknow, I'm not in his inner circle.
What do I know? Well,the reason that I think we're going
to see it is because I thinkyou do want to be is because I
think he really wants the world tosee that, because he requires a perception
change because of what just happened tohim. The segment, by the way,

(03:10):
is brought to you by our friendsat Buffalo Wild Wings. Kat and
I are going to do a draftshow after our live broadcast at the new
Buffalo Wild Wings in Grapevine next Thursday, the twenty fifth, So come out
and see us from two to six, and then Kat and I will probably
go from like six to nine.I don't know. We'll go intil the
Cowboys pick and then a little whileafter and then skid at them. Yeah

(03:30):
man, yeah man. So Donvan Natta strikes again, the guy who
is writing a book about Jerry Jones. And every time there's like an NFL
owners meeting, a day later,you'll have a story from Don Van Nada
with every word that was said ina room that only the NFL owners were

(03:51):
in pretty much like my man getsscoops. Sounds juicy probably if you do
know the name Dona, you knowwhat in connection with a couple of stories,
I mean big meaty, bouncy deepdives that turn up on ESPN dot
com into the world and actions ofJerry, I mean, that's probably how

(04:20):
if you know him, that's how. And just know that if you are
going to read a Don Van Nattastory, you're gonna need a couple of
minutes. Yeah, strap in.And by a couple, I mean you
ain't gonna pull it off in fiveif you have to do some reading.
Yeah, so I'll have to.I think I took my other half already.
I don't have any If anybody wantedsome, sorry, bring me some

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of that stuff I got you tomorrow. Yeah, I'll bring you in some
drugs. So what he wrote fortoday is how Bill Belichick didn't end up
getting a job this offseason. Howdoes the greatest coach ever in the NFL
not land a job? And Ithink a lot of people weren't sure,

(05:01):
like how many of them did hewant? How many was he interested in?
Is that part of it? BecauseI had a lot of people who
I was like, look, theNFL just told you what they think of
Bill Belichick. He's the goat,and nobody wants him. And I heard
back from a lot of people like, well, he only might have wanted
the Atlanta job, and I'm like, I think he might have wanted more
than that. He interviewed for multiplejobs. And so Don Van Natta he

(05:25):
went digging, and he went tofigure out what happened with Bill Belichick this
offseason and what does it mean?And I'll just skip around to some different
parts that I find interesting. Oneof them, Bill Belichick might be the
coach of the Cowboys next year.We'll get there. I don't doubt that

(05:45):
for a minute. Even Belichick wasaware that his head coach slash GM general
manager hybrid had fallen out of favoraround the league. Sources tell me a
year ago, Belichick had drinks withanother head coach, and over cocktails,
he told that coach coach that perhapsthere was a better way than the way
Belichick had been doing things for nearlya quarter century, which is it starts

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and ends with me. I willpick the players, I will coach the
players. I will tell my coaches, how to coach the players, etc.
Etc. And his pair of interviewswith Arthur Blank and Atlanta Falcon executives,
Belichick pledged his willingness to coexist withFalcons executives under the new paradigm.
Hey, I don't need everything.I just want to coach. Just let

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me coach. In fact, heinsisted he just wants to coach. But
the Falcons realized that if you hireBill Belichick, you hire all of him,
an entire philosophy and ethos stemming fromone man's ethic and ingenuity. Sources
said. In the end, hisassurance has failed to persuade Arthur Blank and

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team executives. Quote, he wasessentially voted off the island. A source
close to the Falcons hiring process said, so that was the one job Earlier
in the article, Essentially, hetells us that Bill Belichick was stunned he
didn't get the Falcons job, Likehe interviewed a couple of times, and

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he was like, I got it, and when he didn't, he was
stunned. And Don Van Natta tellsus that after the interviews and when it
was time to figure out who theywere going to hire, Arthur Blank and
all of his top lieutenants all votedon who they wanted to be the next
head coach. They all had atop three. Bill Belichick was in No

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one's top three, the best coachever allegedly, and a jobb or football
team. No one not only wantedto hire him, but thought he was
even one of the good choices.Holy unanimous. Anybody but him, Holy

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crap, I'm I'm probably al wasscared to work with them. And that's
it. Every NFL team is lookingat Bill Belichick and they're like, you
can tell us that you just wantto coach, but we know what you
did your whole life and you're consideredthe best and other people. There's also
they say that Robert Kraft called ArthurBlank and was like, don't trust him.

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So there's a lot going on withwhy Bill Belichick didn't get a job
this offseason. So a couple ofthings he's going to be doing this year
and then we can get back tosome of the other teams and what happened.
He signed a deal to do analysisfor Peyton Manning's Omaha production, which
does the Manning Cast on Monday Nightfootball. Okay, so he'll be doing
something with them throughout the year,and today it was announced that for the

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NFL Draft next week, Bill Belichickis going to be on with Pat McAfee's
show, like Pat McAfee and hisgoofball friends and Bill Belichick like for a
pure to do the drafty leading upto it and then the night of Okay,
so he's just going to mix andmatch a bunch of different things.
So Bill Belichick is about to tryto convince the world, Yeah, I'm

(09:11):
not a control free like that.I don't lead through fear like I can
do twenty twenty four head coaching.And I think you're going to see an
over the top friendly version of BillBelichick for the next ten months on your
TV. Promise you you will,promise you you will see a changed man.

(09:33):
He's going to put that on andout there because I think that he
thinks, or maybe knows that NFLteams have to be convinced that I can
be different than who you think Iwas or who I was that led to
success with the Patriots. That doesn'tseem to be the way people want to
do things anymore. That I canbe different than the way you view me.

(09:54):
Can I hit what I just said? Yeah, sure, I said
that. I think you're going tosee a changed man. I don't know
about that. What you will seeis a guy who's going to be trying
to convince everybody and trying to convincethem, trying very hard to convince them

(10:15):
that he is a changed man nowis he don't know. Time will tell
about that, but you're going he'sgoing to put on his mighty Heidi Hoe
face here. I think you'll seehim amplify a part of him that just
a lot of people. He doesn'tshow that part too. Yeah, right,
like exactly, Bill Belichick having funexists. Yeah, he just doesn't

(10:35):
show that to everyone. I thinkhe's about to. But you think that
his goal in doing that would beto try to get a job coaching an
NFL team again and show the worldthat he's not a big a hole.
Yep, that's what I believe he'sgoing to do. So they do.
Don Vannatta says in his article forESPN, you can go to ESPN dot
com and on the NFL page youcan find this article and it's essentially the

(11:00):
inside look at what happened to BillBelichick this offseason trying to get a job
Because there are also teams that areworried about it because he's fifteen wins away
from the most ever in the NFL. So people are thinking that he wants
the record fifteen wins with a decentteam two seasons, and so it's like,
okay, so are we willing toblow out whatever our structure is bringing

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Bill Belichick, which he's saying youdon't have to do. He's like,
no, I just want to coach. But people think if I'm bringing in
him, yeah, it's a bigshift on how things work. And what
if he's doing it to get fifteenwins and then he's out and now it's
like, oh, now we gotto figure out when I fired everybody or
whatever we did. We made thesebig changes just to bring him in.
Would you saying you don't have todo right? But a leopard doesn't rage

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its spots. He is believed tobe biting his time. Yeah. Yeah,
He's believed to be biting his timeuntil next January for openings on teams.
He has told confidants he would beinterested in coaching, but I want
to try to guess there's three.He says he'd be interested in coaching to
confidants. The Cowboys are one.That's the first one, the Dallas Cowboys,

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and then just keep going through theNFC East, the Philadelphia Eagles,
and the New York Giants. Okay, A source who spoke with a longtime
friend of Belichick said the friend wondersif the coach will have another opportunity.
Quote, I don't think Bill Belichickwill ever be a head coach again in
the National Football League unless it's JerryJones. Well that like, Jerry's the

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one guy that isn't going to causeI mean, they're already unique. The
owner is the GM, They're alreadyway different from everyone else, and so
it's like everybody else is looking atit, like, how is Bill Belichick.
I think in Atlanta, for instance, I believe in Atlanta, their
GM's like forty four years old,and once upon a time he was a
staffer in New England, and soArthur Blank And then we're like, we

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put this guy into be the GM, who is the boss of the head
coach, Jim, and we're goingto bring in Bill Belichick, who promises
I just want to coach, andhe's gonna work under a guy who he
used to paddle on the head.I no so yeah, man, I
don't know, man, unless it'sJerry Jones, Man, I would I

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would bet a lot that that's gonnahappen, and it'll happen at the end
of this year. But this year, when it was rumored to be happening,
I thought the overall thought was thatJerry wouldn't want to hire somebody like
that because Jerry wants to have allthe power. Jerry wants to have all
the power, and the idea thatsomebody else has it does not sit well

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with him. That's been proven.Jerry also likes big names. Yeah,
Jerry also likes big track records.Jerry also likes guys with history of big
winning and nobody's got that like Bill. Jerry's wild ass. Yeah, he's
wild ass. But does he wantall of the credit and all the things.

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Yes, But yeah, I thinkMike nailed it. Like the reason
Mike McCarthy's here isn't because he wasin huge demand in the NFL. It's
because he's won a Super Bowl AndJerry was like, ah, skin's on
the wall. I can sell that, right, boy, I can sell
Bill Belichick. I can sell thehell out of that. Yeah, welcome
everyone to the Star look at mysweet building. I'd like to introduce you

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to the greatest coach to ever coachthis game, the head coach of the
Dallas Cowboys. Boy, he'll sellthe hell out of that other jobs that
Bill Belichick was interested in, orteams that talked about him. Philadelphia had
a conversation about Bill Belichick. HowieRoseman their GM because remember we didn't know
if Nick Sirianni was going to beback after the way the Eagles season ended.

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Yeah, Howie Roseman told ESPN hehad a conversation with Belichick, a
check in just to see how hewas doing after he was out in New
England. The source close to Belichicksaid there was no talk during the call
about working for the Eagles, butthere was chatter in league circles that Philip
Belfi and Belichick could be a match. Despite some owners and executives thinking the
game had passed Belichick by, theEagles felt he still had his fastball.

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He'd nearly beaten him in twenty twentythree season opener with a bad team.
There's also the belief that Belichick willcoach only until he gets fifteen more wins,
though not seriously considering a move JeffreyLourie, the owner of the Eagles,
wondered to a confidant, was itworth overhauling the building, changing personnel
and philosophies on everything from trading staffto salary cap structure for someone who might

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coach only two years. Quote,you'll have to start over again, set
a source with firsthand knowledge of theEagles, thinking who would replace him.
He hasn't had a good record ofdeveloping coaches. They were afraid that he'll
have changed everything and every person andthen you'll be starting from scratch again.
He didn't demand those changes, butthey felt like, if we hire him,

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we have to give everything to himand trust how he does it.
So everybody's scared of something that he'sswearing to them. He doesn't want.
No one believes it, like Iprobably just want to coach. And they're
like, my, yes, he'sgonna get in here and he's gonna ah,
he's gonna change everything, he's gonnarun everything. Yeah, and you
can't blame him for he's gonna bea socks and jocks guy. Dallas was

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another potential suitor. On paper,the Cowboys seem to make sense. Belichick
and Jerry Jones are decades long friendsand both are in win now mode.
Nobody's better than Belichick at converting atalented roster into a championship team. Belichick
told a friend he liked the ideaof sticking it to the Crafts by working
for Jerry, but Jones for allhis flash bluster, and vows to go

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all in his change of verse whenit comes to head coaches. He decided
quickly after Dallas's blowout exit in thewildcard round to let Mike McCarthy coach the
final year of his contract. Washingtonseemed to be another fit. Multiple sources
said Belichick was very interested. Hegrew up in Annapolis. The combination of
his hometown ties and his football acumenmight have helped the Commanders win and land

(16:56):
a stadium in DC. Commanders mighthe already owner Magic Johnson lobbied hard for
Belichick to be the team's new headcoach. Okay, and here I flipped
Atlanta. In Washington, Belichick spoketo new Commander's GM Adam Peters, a
former Patriot staffer, and said herespected the jobs Peters had done in personnel
since he had left New England,helping the Broncos and Niners reach a combined

(17:19):
three Super Bowls. However, principalowner Josh Harris, who had spoken privately
with Kraft about Belichick, told Confidencein early December he respected Belichick, but
he wasn't going to hire him.He wanted the same leadership structure he has
with the seventy six ers and thenew Jersey Devils strong general manager over head

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coach. Harris's hiring of a fortyfour year old GM before he looked for
a coach was a big tell thatBelichick was not a fit, a decision
that the owner endorsed. Carolina Panthersbriefly discussed Bill Belichick before he signed his
two year extension with New England ayear ago, but this offseason, Carolina

(18:03):
decided to pass. A source said, and here is one that is less
about Belichick and more about if you'reout there and you're a Carolina Panther fan,
I'm so sorry. We got itrough here in Dallas. Keep winning
twelve games, making the playoffs anddisappointing. It's very sad, Carolina.
Your organization sucks. Panthers owner DavidTepper often sifts through data to critique his

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coach's play calling that according to asource is tough to do with Belichick as
the figurehead. They had to hiresomebody that the owner felt like he could
watch the game and then yell atabout play call. Yeah, oh,
Carolina, that's gross. The Raidershad just fired a pair of Belichick's former

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acolytes, and Josh McDaniels and DaveZiggler. Owner Mark Davis considered reaching out
to Belichick, but instead just tookthe interim label off of Antonio Pierce's title
after viewing other people. The Titanshad just fired Mike Vrabel, one of
Belichick's favorite former players. They wantedsomeone to collaborate with their general manager,

(19:10):
and the comment echoed by others.A source with a team that had a
head coaching vacancy this year said Belichick'sability to build a culture at this stage
is an issue. He was sostubborn with the offense. He ran that
offense down to a pulp. MacJones looked like a capable quarterback early.
You think Joe Judge and Matt Patriciacan run the offense for him, it's
arrogance. And then that left theFalcons, who passed, Wow, so

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prepare for the uh like the PRTour, Yes, Mike McCarthy did it.
I forgot who wrote the puff piece. But in the off season before
yeah, before he got hired asthe head coach of the Cowboys, Big
old cover story, Mike McCarthy wentback into a barn with friends and they

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wanted to make sure they relearned thecurrent NF fell and knew all the trends
and the tape and all the thingsthey needed to know to be different.
Looks like Peter King reported that wasthat Peter King? Yeah, okay,
I thought it was maybe pre orsomebody, but okay, yeah, that
would make sense to Yeah, yeah, nice little puff piece. Yeah,
spent his time coaching forces how toplay flag football. We're going to get

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some written by somebody that knows he'sgoing to be nice to everybody because everybody
reads him and he may want somethingfrom them someday. So we're going to
get the Bill Belichick daddy daycare storiesand how Bill Belichick is somehow some authority
figure has been telling him what todo and he's been like, yes,
sir, whatever, we feel likeNFL teams need to hear to hire me.

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Now. I think that for whatI'm excited to see him on all
of these various things, and I'mexcited to see him showing a different side.
And I don't know that he won'tjust love that and make a lot
of money and find that it's alot and less stressful. Yeah. Sports
are weird, though, especially whenyou're on the doorstep to a record immortality.

(21:10):
Yeah, I get to say I'mthe best. It's so important.
It's so important, especially if you'realready considered the best ever and you go
out with a whimper and everyone questioningyou, Yeah, like, wow,
you really suck without Tom Brady.Huh, how's that picking the players going?
You got bad football team? Right? But he's got to be desperate

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to be like, I can't goout like this, especially if it's a
it's like a Jerry Jimmy thing,if at the very end of it there's
a definitive winner, like right now, That's why it drives Jerry nuts,
right because Jimmy's the winner. Ileft you can't win, I win,
which he didn't either, but youknow, Jerry's still desperately trying. And
right now, if you talk aboutthe Patriot dynasty before Tom won another Super

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Bowl, you would go who ismore important? Now? It's pretty much
everybody goes one way, right,Yeah, well Tom left and one you
sucked. Ye. Boy, ifyou think that doesn't bother Bill Belichick,
maybe that's what marries Jerry Jones andBill Belichick. Oh yeah, I need

(22:17):
one without Jimmy. I don't careif it's the goat that gets it and
you need one without Tom. Yeah, well, let's team up. Let's
dance. Now it makes sense.We guarantee him it's gonna happen. Guarantee,
I guarantee him. Wow, that'shuge, Mike, It'll happened this
year, not this year, butnext. I would go as far as

(22:41):
I wouldn't be shocked, especially afterDon Vannetta is saying like most teams would
be out on him. Yeah exceptJerry, right, And like if it's
your last shot, I could seeyou put Bill Belichick in a room with
Jerry trying to sell himself. Boy, Jerry will get sold, Jered gets
sold. Yeah, have fun.Mike McCarthy enjoyed the season dead Man Walking.

(23:03):
And they're not gonna help you either. They're not trying to add good
players. That's the best damn sportssegment period coming up next, damn good
one. We got some quick hitor some jabs from mister Dallas. That's next.