Whatever the hell Brat Summer was supposed to be, it’s over now. Make way for the Autumn of Belichick.
In his first fall away from the sidelines in 49 years, football’s dour Da Vinci is keeping the wolf from the door with at least six different media gigs, including a plum role as the first-half scowler-in-residence on ESPN2’s Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli, aka the ManningCast. And as much as Bill Belichick presumably would like to switch back to his “we’re on to Cincinnati” default setting in 2025, the show he put on during the Jets-49ers game suggests that a return to coaching would be TV’s loss.
As much as Belichick’s RBF (Resting Bill Face) makes renowned grumpuses like Gregg Popovich seem as huggable as Winnie the Pooh by comparison, anyone who’d ever caught his segments on WBZ-4’s Patriots All Access already knew that he’d crush it alongside the Bros. Manning. For Boston-area football nerds, Belichick’s weekly breakdowns and analyses were a bit like listening to God talking about the logistical challenges of dividing day from night, only in this case the Supreme Being always seemed to be wearing the same exact Van Heusen dress shirt. (Sleeves: intact.)
While he ditched the button-down for a hoodie emblazoned with the legend “USS. Carl M. Levin DDG 220” (a recently commissioned guided-missile destroyer), Belichick brought the old Beantown magic to MNF. The Xs and Os stuff was predictably glorious—an aside to Peyton Manning about quarterbacks who call a lot of audibles at the line of scrimmage served as a hyper-concentrated master class in the art of defensive camouflage—but few people outside the 617 area code were likely prepared for the Belichickian charm offensive.
Yes, we’re grading on a curve here, but for a 72-year-old football coach, Belichick was practically bubbly. While he can rightfully take his place among the legendary death-stare artists of the ‘70s—“Icy” Bud Grant, Chuck Noll, Chuck Knox (not the same guy), Bill Parcells, the iron-jawed Don Shula and Bible-Study Hitman Tom Landry—Belichick brought an almost grandfatherly vibe to the ManningCast. Maybe the kind of grampa who’ll buy you a copy of The Bluejacket’s Manual for your sixth birthday, but a grampa nonetheless.
Between blasts of hardcore football talk, Belichick demonstrated a hidden talent for doing that thing where your facial muscles go up and back and your mouth looks like a rocking chair runner. After owning up to his compulsory attendance at a few post-Super Bowl loss parties (“Yeah, that is a tough one. … Those after-the-game parties, where you lose? No fun.”), Smilin’ Bill rolled with the punches when Eli hit him back with the inevitable, “I wouldn’t know, Coach.”
“Yeah, I know you don’t,” Belichick said, while his zygomaticus major gamely did its best to compensate for all the images of David Tyree that were flooding his brain.
The Mannings’ new perma-guest also seemed to enjoy reliving old memories of his Pats roughing up Peyton in his rookie season—of particular interest was a clip of the Colts QB “running” to pick up a first down on fourth-and-1; No. 18 was so slow he looked like he was traveling backwards—but he was careful to not take sides in the show’s brother-against-brother dynamic. When the elder Manning encouraged Belichick to make jokes at Eli’s expense, the man who lost two Super Bowls to the Giants instead asked if they might forge a “peace treaty.”
“Peace, Coach,” Eli said. “We got total peace.” Whereupon Belichick threw up a peace sign with his right hand and my soul left my body. It was like watching a four-star admiral make the “hang loose” gesture before going into a blow-by-blow account of the Battle of Midway.
Belichick will sit in with the Mannings on all 11 episodes of their MNF simulcast, part of a fall media offensive that also includes his new stint on the long-running Inside the NFL and a Monday guest spot on The Pat McAfee Show. He’s also doing a weekly ESPN+ program with Peyton, a football-savant juggernaut titled Coach with Bill Belichick (available on YouTube) and a co-hosting gig on Sirius XM’s Let’s Go!.
If the taciturn grumblypuss absolutely killed it in his ManningCast debut, the first show was marred by some apparent technical difficulties. Belichick’s Zoom seemed to be operating at a three-second lag, which led to some early spasms of crosstalk and compensatory stretches of dead air. But that’s an easy fix, and anyway, rough patches and the occasional goof-up are part of the charm of the Peyton-and-Eli show.
One of the series’ most memorable moments arrived in Year One, when Eli flipped the twin birds during an Eagles-Cowboys game. The junior Manning made the double-barreled gesture while recalling the time a 9-year-old Dallas fan greeted him with a similar hand/finger configuration; Eli later suggested that he’d been under the impression that ESPN2’s crew could pixelate the offending digits in real time. (Despite the fact that the FCC does not regulate cable programming, three pearl-clutching viewers fired off letters to the agency to protest Eli’s “despicable and unacceptable” actions. Eagles fans, man.)
Shenanigans aside, the lag may have sent some viewers scrambling back to the flagship telecast helmed by Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, as the ManningCast deliveries came in at 872,000 viewers. While that’s not a record low, contrary to reports (the show premiered on Sept. 13, 2021, to 800,000 viewers), it marked a 43% drop compared to last year’s opener (1.52 million).
The Mannings and their new foil return next week for Falcons-Eagles. For what it’s worth, the NFL’s new media darling gave a positive review to another old Patriot who kicked off his TV career last weekend, taking time on his Sirius show to give props to Tom Brady’s unfairly maligned performance on Fox.
“I thought Tom did great,” Belichick said on the most recent installment of Let’s Go! “I thought he brought up a lot of great points in the game.”
Awww. But fear not, football fans. When Belichick inevitably starts prowling the sidelines again, all this Shiny, Happy Bill stuff will disappear faster than Eli’s sheepishly retracted middle digits.
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