For the last two decades, Bill Belichick has been pilloried for verbally stiff-arming sideline reporters during halftime interviews. In fact, on “Monday Night Football” this season, Joe Buck and Lisa Salters even mocked Belichick for his grumpy demeanor.
“Well, you know what, you get an A for effort, Lisa,” Buck chuckled when Salters said her efforts to extract answers from the Patriots’ head coach were futile.
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But as it turns out, Belichick isn’t the most uncooperative coach when it comes to on-the-record halftime chats. That honor belongs to Andy Reid. On Sunday, Fox’ Erin Andrews informed viewers that she couldn’t speak to Reid at the half, because the Chiefs were trailing.
Apparently, the Chiefs make Reid unavailable if they’re losing at halftime. It’s an insanely childish policy; and yet, there was nary a criticism.
Talk about a double-standard.
It’s understandable why Reid enjoys is afforded more slack from the media than Belichick. For the most part, Reid seems affable and jolly. He’s the kind of guy who will laugh along when you make fat jokes, just like Terry Bradshaw did in the immediate aftermath of the Super Bowl. On the post-game stage, Bradshaw told Reid to “waddle over” to the microphone, and then told him to “have a cheeseburger.”
It’s hard to imagine any NFL broadcaster, even somebody with Bradshaw’s resume, feeling comfortable enough with Belichick to mock him following a Super Bowl win.
Reid wears fun hawaiian shirts for the annual league coaches’ photo, whereas Belichick usually skips the event altogether.
But still: it’s immature for Reid to not even mumble a few platitudes to sideline reporters who are just looking to do their jobs. Fox pays the NFL more than $2 billion annually to broadcast games, and air the Super Bowl once every few years. It’s embarrassing that Reid couldn’t talk to Andrews for a few moments Sunday.
It would’ve been nice to hear from Reid, considering the Chiefs made an array of second-half adjustments, scoring three touchdowns on the way to their second Super Bowl victory in four seasons.
Thanks to that success, Reid is now being compared to Belichick. It’s time to subject him to the same kind of scrutiny.