Adam Thielen on shouting match with Bill Belichick: 'He can hate me all he wants'
If you watched Sunday's game between the Vikings and Patriots you undoubtedly saw a heated exchange between Vikings wide receiver Adam Thielen and Patriots head coach Bill Belichick.
It happened midway through the fourth quarter after a close fourth-and-one running play. Belichick was struggling to find which sock he'd stored his red challenge flag in, but an injury to cornerback Patrick Chung gave him extra time to find it rather than allow the Vikings to hurry to the line and snap the ball.
The officials didn't overturn the call but Thielen still thought it was a cheap move and questioned whether Chung was actually hurt.
"I just thought the play was cheap," Thielen said. "I let my emotions get the best of me, because it’s a smart football play. If you are in that situation, why not? It’s not cheating, because there’s no rule against it from a guy going down. I don’t know if he was hurt or not. He might have been hurt. That’s fine. It is what it is. Just interesting timing for a guy to go down when it’s a close play.”
Thielen added that he as a lot of respect for Belichick, but also said he doesn't care what the Patriots coach thinks of him.
"He can think what he wants to think about me and it doesn't really change how I'm going to go play the game. He can hate me all he wants and I'm still going to be the same person I am," said Thielen.
So what did Belichick and Thielen say to each other on the field?
According to the New York Post, who apparently employs a lip reader, Thielen said "that's bulls---" and Belichick responded with "shut the f--- up."
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Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.