During his press conference today, Bill Belichick was asked “What happens if Jimmy Garoppolo plays better?” by a reporter trying to find out if Garoppolo could actually take Tom Brady’s job away when Brady returns from his suspension.
This was the Belichick’s response courtesy of Pro Football Talk:
“Look, I told you what’s going to happen,” Belichick said, referring to Brady returning as the starter when his suspension ends.
The reporter followed with, “So there’s no . . . .”
And then a more-disgusted-than-usual Belichick shook his head and said, “Jesus Christ.”
Actually I don’t blame Belichick for getting a little peeved. Trying to ask Belichick if there’s going to be a quarterback controversy in New England is the early leader for dumbest question of the season.
I covered many pro football games back in my newspaper reporting days and some of the questions asked are beyond stupid with radio and TV people usually asking the dumbest ones. I remember a reporter asking a star pass rusher if it’s his job to get sacks.
Sometimes, though, you get nervous or intimidated when asking an athlete a question. It happened to me the first time I ever went into a pro locker room. This was back in the late 1970s when I was a college student. I was covering a New York Knicks game and they blew a 20-point lead and lost.
I was the first media person that went into the locker room. Red Holtzman was the Knicks coach then and he pushed me over to the players and said, “Yeah go talk to them.”
So I sided up to a player and stammered out something like, “You guys were up by 20 points. But then you lost the lead and the game. (Pause followed by another long pause) … ah how does it feel?”
The player I directed that ridiculous question happened to be Bill Bradley, a Rhodes Scholar and future senator. Bradley probably is the smartest person to ever play professional basketball.
Luckily for me, Bradley handled my awkwardness in a classy, professional way merely saying in a quiet voice, “Bad.”
I couldn’t make my way out of that locker room fast enough.
