It seems like the fine people of Mexico may not be wholly familiar with Bill Belichick’s vernacular.
In an interview with Boston sports radio network WEEI yesterday, Belichick joined “Dale and Holley with Keefe” to talk about Sunday’s game in Mexico City.
And since Mexico City is a new venue, the radio hosts wanted to know what he thought about the host city.
“Personally, I wouldn’t be in any big rush to do it again. It’s a long way to go for a game. There’s a lot to it in terms of all the logistics of it. … It’s a lot. We spent a lot of time talking about altitude, about hydration, about food, water, about training elements like that. Much more so than let’s just say Denver,” he told DHK.
Mexico City is about 2,000 feet higher in altitude than Denver’s Sports Authority Stadium.
But what really made headlines in Mexico was Belichick’s commentary on natural disasters.
“I think we’re fortunate there was no volcano eruptions, earthquakes or anything else while we were down there. I mean you have two NFL franchises in an area that I don’t know how stable the geological plates that were below us [were], but nothing happened so that was good,” he said.
You would’ve thought a volcano actually erupted, because the entire country pretty much melted down after this interview. Belichick is now getting wall to wall media coverage in Mexico for this — he’s being framed as a selfish American that only cares about the well-being of his football team.
And of course, it all started with ESPN’s Mexican commentator Poncho Vera. “Outrageous ignorance of a ‘genius’ in the NFL,” he tweeted after the article published.
Indignante ignorancia de un “genio” de la NFL… por eso hay que tomar a los deportes profesionales como lo que son: un espectáculo. pic.twitter.com/ptyhKPbvkm
— Poncho Vera (@ponchovpof) November 21, 2017
Now I get it. Mexico’s had some really unfortunate natural disasters this year. Joking about it isn’t the wisest thing to do. But I highly doubt Belichick was trying to joke about earthquakes. He doesn’t really joke about anything. If I had to take a guess, I’d say he was genuinely concerned about his team’s well-being and feels out of place everywhere but Foxboro.
All of this was taken way out of context, as it so often is in 2017.