Perhaps the most controversial decision of Bill Belichick’s career was benching former Super Bowl XLIX hero Malcolm Butler in Super Bowl LII against the Philadelphia Eagles. But that appears to have had a bigger impact than simply the possible outcome of the game.
Appearing on Maggie and Perloff, Matthew Hamachek – the director of “The Dynasty: New England Patriots” docuseries – explained that from what he’s learned, the decision to bench Butler for the game led to some players feeling “cheated” out of a Super Bowl because Belichick refused to play one of his best players in the game.
“Really what the players talk about at least is this incredible tension between Bill and Tom by that point in time leading up to that Eagles Super Bowl,” Hamachek said, via the New York Post. “And then eventually, what happens when you lose, right? What happens when the sort of winning-cures-everything sort of aspect of this story doesn’t continue to happen?
“And there’s a journalist that we talked to who was actually in the locker room after the Super Bowl against the Eagles. And half-jokingly but also half-serious sort of says it almost felt like there was a mutiny within the team after that loss because of how much it meant to them, and how they felt as if they had given every — one of the players talks about, ‘I felt like I had put my body, everything on the line for this,’ and to not even get an explanation at the time as to why this decision was made, he says, ‘I feel like we got cheated a little bit.'”
The Patriots would lose Super Bowl LII but bounced back to win Super Bowl LIII the following season.
Nevertheless, the rift between Bill Belichick and Tom Brady appeared to be starting even before Super Bowl LII.
Who knows what would have happened between the two if they had beaten the Eagles in that fateful game?