O Captain, My Captain

There will always only be one Bill Belichick.

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

– Walt Whitman

Hope.

It’s the universality of hope that binds us all so steadfastly to our sports. It keeps us coming back, time after time, season after season, as confident as ever that this year, things will be different. This year, management has made the right moves and signed the right players and put the right system in place and the arrow is pointing up. It doesn’t matter what the sport is or where you are in the world or what may or may not have happened in the past; with the dawn of each new season, there’s that hope that maybe this time will be make all the suffering worth it. Sports give us hope, and as another great Alexander once said, hope springs eternal.

But there exists a cluster of states in the northeastern corner of this great country of ours for whom hope has long come second to its counterpoint. For what is hope but a desire for something good to happen? And how can hope be a driving force when that hope has been fully realized?

As fans, we’re constantly prepared, in some form or other, to say goodbye to our favorite players. The career of a professional athlete is a very short one, even the ones who stick around long enough to become legends, and wishing a team favorite the best of luck with the next chapter of his life is simply part of the process. And as Patriots fans, we’ve seen some of the absolute best go off to finish playing elsewhere or enter the coaching pipeline or whatever it is they decided to do. These past 20-plus years have blessed us with the likes of Tom Brady, Richard Seymour, Tedy Bruschi Vince Wilfork, Devin McCourty, Julian Edelman, Rob Gronkowski, Matthew Slater… I could go on forever. It’s sad to see them go, but as I have already mentioned, we always knew it was coming.

Just not this one. I wasn’t ready for this one.

Bill Belichick was supposed to be the coach of the New England Patriots forever. His passion for the game of professional football was limitless and he was never going to retire. He would always be around, despite the constant turnover and rampant parity in the NFL, and because of that we Patriots fans could always count on more than just hoping for success. Six championships, nine Super Bowl appearances, more wins than any other coach in league history save one, and a relentless desire to always be learning more about the game. There would never be a need to look for anybody else.

But for the first time in the 21st century, the Patriots will be entering into the next season without Belichick as their coach.

Some people think it was the right move, that perhaps it was simply time for a change at the top and that Bill’s time with the team had run its course. Some people think it was a mistake, the ruthlessness of this league on full display as two decades of unprecedented dominance were erased by a few bad drafts and a few disappointing seasons. Maybe there are others who are still numb to it all, or who are cautiously optimistic about the switch while remaining appreciative of what Belichick has done during his time here. Whatever, or however, it is you’re feeling in the wake of the news, I’d like to hope — there’s that word again — that the understanding of what we were able to experience these past 20 years are unlike anything that has ever happened, or will ever happen, in the history of professional sports. The blessings bestowed upon us as Patriots fans are just too innumerable to count. We will never be where we were again.

But it happened. Every wild, glorious minute of it happened. And it happened for our team, largely because of this man.

I don’t need to recap the numbers and the stats and the accolades here. I don’t need to talk about win records and championships and all of that other stuff. You can find those anywhere, and I’ve always said that sports aren’t played on an Excel spreadsheet. Plus, we all know what Bill Belichick accomplished during his tenure, what he was able to usher in as the head coach of the Patriots.

I’m just here to say thank you.

Thank you, Coach Belichick, for giving me some of the greatest moments of my life. Thank you for shepherding my favorite team through almost half of my career as a Patriots fan. Thank you for the monotone press conferences, the singular focus on winning, the culture, the preparation. Thank you for fostering my love of Special Teams and instilling in me a desire to become a student of the game in a way that I never have for any of the other sports I follow. Thank you for opening my eyes to the hypocrisy of mainstream sports media and the search for actual, legitimate sports coverage that ultimately led me to discover Pats Pulpit all of those years ago. Thank you on behalf of the players currently coming out in droves to express their own gratitude, doubling down on who they think the greatest coach of all time is.

For me, the New England Patriots are much more than just a team I follow or a fun way to kill a few hours on a Sunday afternoon in autumn. The Patriots are part of who I am, part of who so many of us out there are… and because of you, it’s a part of ourselves we’re incredibly proud of.

I’ve never met you, Coach Belichick, but I hope (just can’t get away from it, can I) I get the chance to someday, and to relay all of this to you in person. You’ve done more for me, for the Patriots, and for the fans than you’ll ever fully know, and while this lousy article isn’t even close to enough to fully express what you mean to us, it’s something, at least.

As Belichick moves on to the next step in his legendary career, we all have to stay behind. We’re Patriots fans, and our loyalty will always and forever remain at 1 Patriot Place, Foxborough, Massachusetts, 02035. It’s going to be a little strange — okay, a lot strange — moving forward without him, but we all will. We have a new leader at the helm, and we’re all ready and willing to follow him just as staunchly as we followed our last one. The future of this franchise is an uncertain one, but we sit here on this cold January morning with the highest draft pick the team has had in over 30 years. They have a ton of cap space. They have a solid core of defenders in place and the chance to build a strong roster. A number of other teams in the AFC have aging players and untenable salaries on the books, meaning there will be a chance to possibly make some noise in 2024 in beyond. So, as always, even without Bill Belichick, there’s a lot of reason for optimism going forward.

Because what is optimism if not hope?

I hope that Jerod Mayo knows that he has our full support.

I hope that the Patriots win another few Super Bowls in my lifetime.

I hope that Bill Belichick finds success wherever he goes next.

And I hope he knows how unfathomably grateful we are for everything he did for this team.

Thank you, Bill.

Thank you.