Bill Belichick may have an apathetic attitude toward the media, but he was paying attention to everything being said and written long before he had Jordon Hudson to do it for him.
Greg Bedard addressed the rumors that he once applied for a position within the New England Patriots front office on his latest podcast episode with Nick Cattles. It was recently revealed on 98.5 The Sports Hub that Bedard once attempted to get a job with the Patriots, and he was mocked in the building for it. Bedard, however, explained that while he did lobby for a position with the Patriots and Bill Belichick back in 2017, it was out of desperation after being laid off from SI and struggling to land a job with another media outlet.
Bedard said he even received a phone call from Belichick, who declined his request for work, explaining that he can’t hire a media member for a position within the team. But Bedard also told a story about his relationship with Belichick, built on respect rather than mockery, which helped explain why he may have felt comfortable asking the Patriots head coach for a job.
In 2013, while working for The Boston Globe and mulling an offer from Peter King to join Sports Illustrated and The MMQB, Bedard asked Belichick for advice about the career decision.
“He said, ‘Greg, I think you’ve done a great job,’” Bedard remembered. “’There’s been a lot of stuff that you write about us where we thought you had a mole in the building because it was right in line with how we were talking about the team and certain players. It was very along the same lines of what we were talking about in the building, and we thought for sure you had this great mole in the building.’”
Bedard insisted he did not have a mole in the building, telling Belichick all of his opinions that made it to print came from watching film and speaking with league sources. And after Belichick was told that Peter King envisioned him in a role similar to the one Paul Zimmerman previously held at Sports Illustrated, the Patriots head coach gave his blessing.
“He said, ‘I don’t think they could get anybody better to do that job,’” Bedard recalled of his career advice from Belichick. “And so, with Bill’s blessing, that was part of the reason I ended up taking the job.”
As much as Belichick played coy with the media, he was known to read everything written about the Patriots and even listened to much of what was said on sports radio. It is difficult, however, to envision Belichick giving career advice to local media members, but that’s allegedly what he did with Bedard. And if Belichick thought that highly of Bedard’s football expertise in 2013, it may have made him feel comfortable in reaching out for career help again a few years later.
