This Story About Bill Belichick Making Up For Snubbing Those Two Little Kids Of High Fives In Detroit Years Ago Will Warm Your Heart
NESN - Zach Ferreira won’t ever forget the moment Bill Belichick walked past his outstretched arm at Ford Field in Detroit. The Meme Lords of the Internet won’t let him forget it either.
“It’s kind of crazy because it didn’t seem like a big deal when it first went viral,” the 14-year-old Ferreira told NESN.com during a phone interview Tuesday, recalling the moment from Sept. 23, 2018. “I thought it would be a one time thing, but every time it pops up, it’s crazy to see.”
Zach, who was nine years old at the time, was the young fan Belichick breezed by when the New England Patriots head coach took the field for “Sunday Night Football” against the Lions. Belichick was captured swiftly walking past Zach and his then 14-year-old friend, Matthew Noonan. The video immediately went viral.
Now, with Belichick’s future in New England up in the air and the boys five years older, Andy took to social media to share a positive story about the future Hall of Famer. Because while the internet ran with theories that Belichick made two young fans cry, Andy stressed that is far from the truth.
“We didn’t think anything of it in the moment. The dads kind of giggled about it because it’s just typical Belichick,” Andy recalled. “But the kids didn’t care, there were 20 or 30 other players and coaches who did the same thing earlier.”
Andy added: “He (Belichick) got such a bad wrap because of that 15-second clip of like blowing off two little kids that people should know there’s more to the story. While we were never in 1,000 years offended by it or expecting anything, he more than made up for it.”
Surely everybody remembers this banger from the Bill Belichick greatest hits collection.
The meme-Gods did indeed have a field day with this one. Setting it to John Williams' epic "Imperial March", they didn't even need to adjust Belichick's cadence for it to sync up perfectly with the tempo.
As a Pats fan, we didn't even blink at this.
Belichick doesn't acknowledge Patriots fans before or after a game. Why would he dignify two little runts in Lions gear?
But of course, the national outrage policy criminalized him for hurting their feelings. And he's been branded an asshole because of numerous instances just like this, ever since.
Until last week…
When Belichick and the Patriots caught wind of the clip, Zach and Matthew were invited to Gillette Stadium. They met Belichick on the field before the Patriots faced the Buffalo Bills on Dec. 23, 2018. Belichick took a picture with the two of them, and he even signed a photo Andy captured a few months earlier at Ford Field.
Belichick told the two young Patriots fans: “Sorry I missed you in Detroit.”
“That’s the one part I remember the most,” Zach said in reference to Belichick’s message. “I was kind of speechless. I didn’t know what to say when he came up to us.”
What a feel good ending to a story most of us forgot all about. It's stuff like this, and other underreported stuff like the fact that all the money WEEI paid Belichick for his Monday morning radio show call-ins, Belichick would take and divide up amongst all his assistants at the end of the season, that shows what a genuinely good guy he is. He doesn't do it for the show or the publicity, in fact he probably hates that this story finally came out 5 years later. He's like James Earl Jones' character in The Sandlot where he takes pride in the people who don't know him being petrified of him.
p.s. - consider this my official invitation to Tom Brady to make it up to me for leaving me hanging that time outside the SB after party in Houston.
——- UPDATE ——
The father of the two boys reached out to me on twitter to explain that it was actually a tweet from Barstool that set the entire thing in motion. (Shocker). The proud dad also added that TB12 came by and made the boys’ day and the pic he included is awesome.