Bill Belichick Takes Funny, Factually Incorrect Jab At Jets

Bill Belichick does not like the New York Jets.

Belichick has never passed up an opportunity to take little jabs at the franchise he was briefly appointed head coach of, primarily showing his disdain by way of on-field butt-whooping throughout his lengthy tenure with the New England Patriots.

He can't do that anymore, so the current free agent had to use one of his many media jobs to once again dunk on the J-E-T-S.

"Everybody has liked (Sam) Darnold except the Jets," Belichick said in his Monday appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show." "The people in Carolina I talk to, they really liked him. He was with the Rams, not for very long, they liked him. I think they wanted to re-sign him. He was looking for more of an opportunity than playing behind (Matthew) Stafford. I know that Kevin (O'Connell) and some of the coaches in Minnesota, they really like him, too. It seemed like the only people who didn’t like Darnold were the Jets."

There's a lot to unpack there, starting with the fact that Belichick is wrong.

Darnold never played for the Rams. Belichick likely confused him with Baker Mayfield, a former teammate in Carolina, when saying he didn't want to be Stafford's backup. Darnold was actually the backup for Brock Purdy with the San Francisco 49ers, and only spent one season there before signing with the Minnesota Vikings.

Belichick also might have forgotten the Jets actually got a pretty good return for Darnold, netting picks in the second, fourth and sixth rounds of the draft before finding their way to Aaron Rodgers. (Zach Wilson playing was punishment enough. We don't have to talk about him.)

Darnold is lighting the world on fire in Minnesota, so it's fair to wonder where New York went wrong in its development of the former No. 3 pick. Belichick's deployment of the "boogeyman defense" probably had something to do with it.