Bill Belichick may have missed out on picking up a new head coaching gig in the last hiring cycle, but we'll be seeing plenty of him this NFL season. In addition to guest spots on
The Pat McAfee Show and joining the ManningCast, it looks like Belichick will be on Showtime's acclaimed
Inside the NFL program as well. After a lengthy, legendary tenure with the New England Patriots in which he won six Super Bowls, we'll get to see The Hoodie in rare form and in a slightly more casual, less-gruff humor than in all the preceding years. The great part about all this is Belichick is such a passionate student and historian of football that you get epic stories like this one totally out of left field. You know how a popular general debate topic is, "Could the best college team beat the worst NFL team?" Well, back when Chicago Bears Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton was in college at Jackson State, the biggest stars from the NCAA level trained for a month to play an exhibition game against the defending Super Bowl champion. In a promotional
Inside the NFL clip, Belichick gushes over how Payton made the Pittsburgh Steelers' vaunted defense look silly: https://twitter.com/NFLFilms/status/1829605685627068845 The most notable bits of this highlight reel show Payton catching a short pass and juking the jock off Steelers linebacker Jack Lambert — one of the scariest dudes to ever put on pads. Lambert didn't have his front teeth and was notorious for laying down vicious hits on anyone who came his way. Even as a collegian, Payton had Lambert grasping at air. Not many people would be willing to take on a tackler like Lambert head-on. Payton did precisely that and proceeded to run his a** over. Full-on
Madden truck stick. Multiple other defenders tried to bring Payton down, but couldn't get him to the ground and had to shove him out of bounds. This speaks to the blend of power, vision, quickness, and contact balance Payton had en route to a 1977 NFL MVP award and as a key leader on the '85 Chicago Bears Super Bowl team. I feel like throwing out any collection of college stars against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs would be completely unfair nowadays, but if they could do
this back in the day, why can't we organize a group of college all-stars to take on the NFL's worst team? Think about how dope it would've been to see Caleb Williams play quarterback against the Carolina Panthers with, say, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers to throw to and a half-decent offensive line to protect him, unlike what he had at the end at USC. Williams' counterpart would be Bryce Young, who the Panthers — voted in an
agent survey as the NFL's most unstable team — sold the farm to Chicago to move up in the draft and get at No. 1 overall. https://twitter.com/ScottBarrettDFB/status/1829162264198250557 Ratings for a pre-2024 NFL Draft Williams-Young QB duel would've set records heretofore unseen. Oh well. You know what the good news is? The Bears host the Panthers in Week 5 this season. I don't care what the spread is. Telling you right now, me and I'd wager 95% of the American betting public will be
hammering the spread in Chicago's favor. That will be one of the most entertaining games of the year. Neat that the Caleb Williams-Bears saga links up to this story about Belichick praising the late, great Payton. He was the last truly elite offensive catalyst Chicago had — and a reminder of how long it's been since the Bears had a legit, championship-caliber football operation.
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