More Contentious than Patriots’ Coach Belichick who He Replaced?
Q: A real tough one, right Coach Will? Coughing it up at the end of an important game?
CWS: We have seen better days. This is the winter of our discontent.
Q: Did your stars let you down?
CWS: The fault lies not in our stars.
Q: What were you thinking with your bruising fullback out hurt when you neared the goal line on the last drive?
CWS: A horse, a horse. My kingdom for a horse.
Q: I’m sure you missed him, but your opposite number pulled trick plays out of the bag in the red zone. Did you consider other plays instead of pounding the ball up the middle? Some razzle-dazzle?
CWS: I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish! To thine own self be true, I say. Plays? Neither a borrower or lender be. I’ll suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, shot even by you scurvy companions, you knaves, whose backward voices are to utter foul speeches and detract.
Q: Coach Will, we know you’re under pressure, and repeating past success isn’t easy . . .
CWS: Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Sure, what’s done can’t be undone, but what is past is prologue, you elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hogs.
Q: Hey, Coach Will, hold your horses. Let’s get back to this team and this game it lost. You lost.
CWS: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Q: Methinks you’re too thin-skinned.
CWS: Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!
Q: Let’s look to the future: Can your team, this team, achieve greatness after this loss?
CWS: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. We know what we are, but know not what we may be. Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
Q: Is that what happened to you when you punted the ball away with time running out?
CWS: Though that seemed madness, yet there was method in ’t, you boil, you plague sore, you embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood.
Q: Coach Will, do the taunts aimed at us reflect the pressure you’re feeling even after authoring so many pigskin masterpieces. Is the stage getting too big for you?
CWS: All the world’s a stage, and one man plays many parts. Tongues can unvenom all the words of the Nile. My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.
Q: We came not to praise you, but to speak the truth.
CWS: You have such February faces, so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness.
Q: And you, sir, might you be a genius with your strutting and foul mouth. Is this press conference posturing all an act to deflect talk from the ineptitude of some of your players, to have their backs?
CWS: You think I’m just a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more? Nothing comes of nothing.
Q: And that’s not too much less than your team scored. How do you respond to that?
CWS: Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving. Besides, all that glitters isn’t gold.There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so, and you poisonous bunch-backed toads, you scullions, you remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villains, I am a man more sinned against, than sinning.
Q: But, when you’ve been on top, you’ve claimed winning is everything.
CWS: Yes, to win, or not to win. That’s always the question, but an occasional loss isn’t a reason for you members of the fourth estate to let slip the dogs of war.
Q: If I may be so bold …
CWS: Boldness be my friend, you parrot-teachers. Yes, we have seen better days, but is that a reason to yell “off with my head”? Misery does acquaint a man, me, with strange bedfellows, you whose brains are as dry as remainder biscuits after a voyage.
Q: One last actual game question: What did you yell at the ref when he ruled your tight end out of bounds right before the first down sticks?
CWS: Out, out, damned spot. Et, tu? Brutish press. I must bid you out, out, adieu. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Go tell your tales like idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. More of your conversation would infect my brain.
