FOXBORO, Mass. — Bill Belichick was peppered with questions about James Harrison and the weather Friday morning. He had no interest in discussing either.
The New England Patriots coach downplayed the Harrison signing, saying the former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker’s decision to join a rival wasn’t “some big historical event.” As for the brutal cold that’s swept through Massachusetts this week and is supposed to continue through Sunday’s game against the New York Jets at Gillette Stadium?
“We’ll see what we get,” Belichick said. “I’m not going to base too much on what (the temperature) is two games before the game. I’ve been down that road before. The weather changes pretty quickly around here. Even what we forecast for the day of the game on the day of the game isn’t always what we get. So we’ll see what we get.”
Belichick has indeed been down this road before. In 2014, he delivered a lengthy and thoroughly entertaining diatribe about the inconsistency of weathermen.
“I’d say based on the forecasts we’ve gotten so far this year, none of them have been even close to what the game conditions were,” Belichick said before an early November game against the Denver Broncos. “There was a 100 percent chance of rain last week, and the only water I saw was on the Gatorade table. So it is what it is. And you know as well as I do it could start one way and change during the game. So we’ve got to be ready for whatever it is.
“But my experience of going with the forecast in this area, two days before the game, I mean, I’d bet a lot that they’re wrong, just based on history, because they’re almost always wrong.”
He wasn’t done.
“When you walk out on the field, that’s really when you know what it is,” the coach added. “The rest of it’s really just a bunch of hot air. We played down in Miami two years ago, and there was a zero percent chance of rain. Zero. And it rained. So, I mean, I’m just telling you, if I did my job the way they do theirs, I’d be here about a week.”
With the forecast calling for a high temperature of 14 degrees and a low of negative-4, Sunday’s game should be one of the coldest in Patriots history. Gillette Stadium only has hosted one game with a kickoff temperature below 20 degrees: the bone-chillingly cold 2003 divisional-round win over the Tennessee Titans (4 degrees).
Since 1993, the Patriots are 42-10 when the game-time temperature dips below 35 degrees.
“Yeah, there’s been a few,” Belichick said when asked to recall some of the coldest games he’s even coached. “We’ll see how it goes here.”
