It’s easy these days to see Bill Belichick through rose-tinted glasses. A byproduct of the head coach winning six Super Bowl titles. However, make no mistake. The man isn’t exactly beloved by many people over the years. He is viewed as a cheater by some and absolutely cutthroat and heartless by others. For ex-Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon? The description is somewhat more direct.
Belichick is a “lying piece of s**t.”
It’s easy to forget that Belichick’s head coaching legacy didn’t start in New England. His first foray happened back in 1991 with the Cleveland Browns. It wasn’t nearly as glorious. Just one playoff trip in five seasons. Things really went off the rails in 1995 though. That was the year owner Art Model revealed that he was moving the franchise to Baltimore. A distraction Bellichick had no prayer of overcoming.
This perhaps led to a lot of promises he couldn’t keep.
Such as the one he made to McMahon. That year, the Browns were looking for more depth at quarterback. So they brought the longtime veteran in. Where it gets ugly is what happened at the conclusion of training camp. McMahon explained to 850 ESPN Cleveland.
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“After training camp [Belichick] called me in and says, ‘Hey we’re gonna have to release you. We’ve got a lot of guys hurt. We need some roster spots. Then he said, ‘Hey no. But we really want you, we need you here.’ I said what are you telling me, Bill? He goes, ‘I want you to move here.’ If I’m gonna be here. I move my family here. They’re gonna be here for six months with me. I gotta find a hockey team for my sons. They were big into hockey at the time. So don’t screw me around. And he said ‘We’re gonna take care of you. . . . We’ll pay you to sit out.’
Such assurances are the norm from teams. Attempt to keep a player they want at ease. The problem was Belichick was in no position to follow through on his promises. Such was the life of coaching under an owner with well-known debt issues. McMahon did end up moving to Cleveland, renting a house for his family. However, things got really bad when the Browns failed to pay him the money they promised. That led to a physical altercation with Director of Player Personnel Michael Lombardi.
“I dressed three games — the eight, nine, and ten weeks — and I got those checks. I confronted the G.M. at the time, what the hell was his name, Lombardi? He’s coming down the hallway and I said, ‘Hey man, I need my money. My wife was just in a wreck and I don’t want to deal with insurance.’ He looks at me and says, ‘Well, maybe we’ll pay you, maybe we won’t.’ And I lost it. I just snapped. I grabbed him by the neck and threw his head against the wall and said, ‘You’re gonna pay me my money.” Then I started realizing what I was doing and I’m looking around the hallway to see if there were any cameras. I stopped hitting him and he slid down the wall.”
Jim McMahon realized he had to get out of there
Not just because the Browns weren’t paying him but now because he’d basically assaulted one of the highest-ranking members of their front office. The odds are he would get cut at some point soon but he wasn’t planning to wait that long. Right after the Lombardi confrontation, he placed an important phone call.
“I walked into the training room and called my attorney and said, ‘Hey get me cut right now.’ He called me back within two minutes and said they’ll release you if that’s what you want. So I had just walked out of the QB meeting to go to the restroom and all this had just happened in ten minutes. So I walk back into the QB meeting — it was Vinny Testaverde, myself, and Eric Zeier and just said ‘Hey boys, I’ll see you all later. I’m outta here’ The coach said, ‘Have you talked Bill?’ I said, “You can tell Bill to kiss my ass. He’s a lying piece of shit.’ Then I was gone. The very next day I was up in Green Bay.”
It proved to be a fortuitous career move for McMahon. The Packers were on the rise in the NFC, reaching the conference championship that same year. Then in 1996, they stampeded their way to their first Super Bowl championship since 1967. Jim McMahon called that experience the best he’s ever had with an organization. He retired after that season.
The best part of all?
Green Bay crushed the Patriots in that Super Bowl game 35-21. The defensive coordinator of that team? Bill Belichick. Sometimes things just work out in the end. McMahon offers a reminder that just because a certain person has great success at what they do doesn’t always make them a role model. Belichick is a perfect example. He’s one of the greatest coaching minds in history, but also a notoriously questionable GM.
One can’t fault Jim McMahon too much for hating the guy. A word was given and not kept. At the same time, it’s hard not to wish the treatment had been better. Then Bears fans wouldn’t have had to see their former hero QB in a Packers uniform.
