The game: Jets at Patriots
The beer: Great Marsh Classic Milk Stout
The result: Loss, 17–3
The method: NFL+
The record: 4–13
The headline: “It couldn’t adapt so it couldn’t survive.” – Adverts, “Great British Mistake”

The commentary: “Fire Belichick.” It’s been a WordPress tag since October 2021—that writer is pissed—and a sentiment for longer, but goddamn if I didn’t get sentimental during Belichick’s Thursday press conference. “So many fond memories.” You’re goddamn right. I had my problems with the general manager and his rightward leanings but I trusted the hell out of the coach, and surgery proved to be an imperfect science as I suspected:

Wednesday, August 16, 2023
I await “Handy” Bob Kraft’s passive-aggressive effort to strip the coach of his GM duties and the resignation that results.

When you’re right you’re right. Drag. Fox even played “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” coming out of a commercial Sunday to, what, illustrate the endurance of Belichick’s tenure? Afterward, color analyst Robert Smith—“So delicate, lost in the cold”—related Belichick’s answer during the pregame production meeting that Iron Butterfly was the first concert he attended in 1971… or 1973. Your first concert was at some point within a twenty-four-month period of time? OK. It’s not all Robert Plant and the Black Crowes at the Centrum. Meanwhile, the man is disappearing before our eyes, buried in winter gear and a storm that took its time dumping a foot of snow across the region. “He looks like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.” Above, my reflected Christmas tree lights are the only sign of life.

To be continued.

Up next: Ladies and gentlemen, Jerod Mayo. Cheers!