James Harrison Explains Why Belichick is a Million Times Better than Mike Tomlin
Dammit, am I ever going to miss James Harrison. He was only in New England for a cup of coffee but holy smokes did he get it in the short time he was here. And he’s not the least bit shy to let the bomb bay doors swing open and saturate Mike Tomlin City with incendiary truthbombs. Confirming everything Patriots fans have known to be true all along.
Hey, Mike Tomlin is a player’s coach! A fun coach! He treats them like men! Belichick is a controlling, paranoid little gargoyle who won’t let them enjoy themselves! Right. So what does each guy get? Coach McGoodTime’s players wipe their feet with him and The Hooded One gets the results he demands. Tomlin’s guys Facebook Live in the playoff locker room while he’s calling the Patriots “assholes” and in the very act of telling them to watch their step on social media. They look ahead to the Pats game, just like their head coach did, only to get bounced from the postseason by the Jacksonville Jaguars. While at the same time in Foxboro, his counterpoint has the QB with the most wins and rings in history petrified of being late to a meeting. And that, my friends, is a little thing called respect. For the coach, sure. But also respect for his priorities. For the game. For putting winning first and foremost above all other things.
Harrison won a Super Bowl and a DPOTY for Tomlin. And it took him all of a couple of months in New England to see the difference. Deebo’s comments remind me of what Danny Amendola said on Comeback SZN:
“I got to play for the greatest coach of time, the greatest quarterback of all time and one of the greatest owners of all time. I got to understand what it was like to put the work in and really grind it out… and learn how to win. When I was in St. Louis, I learned that wins are hard to come by in the NFL… but sometimes we’d win in New England and coach wasn’t happy. Tom wasn’t happy. Or we knew we could play better here or play better there. I learned how to win and how to play and what it meant to play good football.”