SnapFace. InstantChat. None of this stuff matters to New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, and it really shouldn’t matter all that much to the rest of us, either. The worst thing that can possibly come out of Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown’s locker room video is a fine for violating the league’s social media policy, which is designed almost entirely to ensure that they can maximize their own profits.
If that were not obvious, let me remind you that the league allows players to post on social media on the sidelines during the Pro Bowl. I believe they even have a social media booth on the sidelines or something like that. Because, in that instance, in a game that gets increasingly low ratings, they will try anything to boost their ratings.
Many seem to be worried about Brown’s Facebook Live video, during which head coach Mike Tomlin references the Patriots as “a**holes” because they had the luxury of having an extra day and a half to prepare for the AFC Championship game—during which they will host the Steelers—would provide New England with ‘bulletin board’ material to serve as motivation for the matchup.
The Patriots, of course, played on Saturday, while the Steelers’ game was moved from a 1:05 kickoff on Sunday to an 8:20 kickoff, which forced the team to touch down back in Pittsburgh at around four in the morning.
If there is one team in the league that does not need such external motivation, it would be a Belichick-coached one, and when he was asked about the video, he expressed the apathy that you would expect, much in contrast to the New England media—as well as much of the Pittsburgh media, spearheaded by the old worry-wort, Ed Bouchette.
“As you know I’m not on SnapFace and all that, so I don’t really get those”, Belichick said. “I’m really just worried about getting our team ready to go. I’m not really too worried about what they put on InstantChat, or whatever it is”.
To think that Belichick doesn’t know exactly what is going on in every single locker room around the league is profoundly naïve. If the revelation that Tomlin might be subject to a bit of a sailor’s mouth right after a hard-fought, emotional victory to return to the AFC Championship game for the first time in six years is that big a deal, then I don’t know what to say.
Belichick doesn’t care. The players don’t care. Maybe Tomlin is a little annoyed about Brown posting it to Facebook, and there will probably be a policy put in place to prevent that going forward, but to anybody that this actually affects, it is pretty much a non-issue.
