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Bill Belichick Humorously Recalls Jimmy Johnson Insult From Early Coaching Days

On SiriusXM’s ‘Let’s Go,’ Belichick revealed the blunt assessment Johnson once gave him about one of his teams.

Jimmy Traina

Belichick (right) will never forget about a certain conversation with Johnson.
Belichick (right) will never forget about a certain conversation with Johnson. / Jimmy Johnson: RVR Photos/Imagn Images; Bill Belichick: Photo By Imagn Images

1. One of Bill Belichick’s million media jobs these days is appearing every Monday night with Jim Gray on SiriusXM’s revamped version of Let’s Go.

On this week’s show, Gray asked Belichick how he thought Tom Brady did in his debut game as Fox’s lead analyst. That led to Belichick going on a tangent that resulted in a great story about former Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson during Belichick's tenure as Browns coach.

As Belichick told it, in 1991, the Cowboys came into Cleveland and beat the Browns, 26-14. There was a postgame conversation between Belichick and Johnson. Here’s how Belichick explained it to Gray:

“I talked to Jimmy Johnson after that game and said, ‘Hey, Jimmy, what’d you think of our team? What could we do better? What are your impressions of the game?’ And he said, ‘You know, Bill, to be honest, we didn’t even do a scouting report on you guys. You’re terrible. We got Washington next week, a Monday night game, and that’s really the big one for us.’ And Washington, of course, went on to win the Super Bowl that year, so Jimmy had that pretty well pegged. That was, yeah, that was kind of a little bit of a downer there.”

These types of anecdotes and stories could make Belichick a media darling before he goes back into coaching.

2. Jason Kelce made his debut on ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown yesterday and he came out of the gate hot. As I tweeted on Monday, the pull quote that ESPN used on Twitter was NOT the significant part of this clip.

3. I wrote a Traina Thoughts column last week about how this carriage dispute between DirecTV and Disney seemed to be different than past disputes. These disagreements always seemed to get settled right before a big event. But that is not the case here, with DirecTV customers getting shut out of Monday night’s Jets-49ers game.

This was the message DirecTV saw when they flipped on ESPN last night.

Meanwhile, ESPN has been calling on the big guns to spread the word about other ways to watch the network.

DirecTV customers have been shut out of Disney programing, which includes all the ESPN channels, since Sept. 1.

4. The NFL got a lot of impressive ratings news for Week 1. NBC had the most-watched NFL kickoff game ever with 28.9 million people tuning in for Ravens-Chiefs.

Fox drew 23.8 million for Cowboys-Browns on Sunday thanks to the NFL scrapping the Week 1 doubleheader that saw CBS and Fox both air national games in the late window for the opening week.

But the most impressive number might have been CBS averaging 17.7 million viewers for regional coverage at 1 p.m. ET. It was CBS’s most-watched single-game broadcast in Week 1 since 1998.

5. I can’t really explain why, and I don’t know what this says about me, but athletes destroying tablets has become one of my favorite things in sports. Braves outfielder Jorge Soler did a number on an iPad during Monday’s game.

6. The latest episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina features a conversation with ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt.

Van Pelt, who just began his 10th year hosting his solo version of SportsCenter and hosts ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown, talks about the addition of Jason Kelce to the pregame show, how he helped recruit Kelce and what he expects from the future Hall of Famer.

Van Pelt also talks about his decade as a SportsCenter host, signing a new five-year contract to stay with the show and the importance of being on air right after big events.

Other topics covered with Van Pelt include Pat McAfee’s recent confrontation with media members at ESPN’s Media Day in Bristol, Conn., SVP’s frustration with a perceived ESPN-FS1 competition and the hypothetical of Inside the NBA joining ESPN.

In addition, Van Pelt tells the story of the time he accidentally said the F-word on air, talks about his weekly “Bad Beats” segment, opines on what he’d like to accomplish with his podcast and much more.

Following Van Pelt, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. In this week’s segment, we discuss Week 1 NFL lines and season over/unders, the DirecTV-ESPN carriage dispute and getting hooked into another Sopranos rewatch.

You can listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina below or on Apple and Spotify.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Sports Illustrated‘s YouTube channel.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: From Feb. 13, 2001: “Top Ten Things That Sound Cool When Spoken By James Earl Jones." RIP.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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