Honoring 'Bill Belichick the Progressive'

February 6th, 2012 6:48 AM

For those who like to root against the New England Patriots (or simply wonder about how much they remind you of our original New England patriots), there’s always the Daily Kos, which on Thursday honored “Bill Belichick the progressive.”

The blogger “upstateNY” (should be a Bills fan?) professed “I marvel at how a thoroughly progressive man with a progressive plan has come to dominate NFL football, one of the reddest of redblooded American sports.”

Telling readers that Rush Limbaugh criticized Belichick for refusing to let his stars be honored individually, he touted that “Belichick has learned a lot about life, economics, sacrifice, community, compassion, hard work, discipline, education, and he's come up with a system that seems to instill these values into his football team. And this is exactly why right-wing commentators are incredulous and downright pissy that these progressive and democratic values could come to dominate one of the reddest of our cultural icons, one that has been repeatedly compared to the military, the NFL.”

Well, the Patriots didn’t exactly dominate in the Super Bowl. But here’s how Mr. Upstate sees it:

In the last several years, the Patriots have proven themselves the class of the league. They have won three Super Bowls, and been a top team each year. And much to the astonishment of fans and media in this salary cap era, they seem to do it without a large contingent of the requisite stars on the team. They win with Everyman and the team concept. Sure, there are a few bonafide excellent players on the team. But when you look at their paychecks, you begin to notice something special about the Patriots. All of them have willingly taken less money to play for Bill Belichick. They have bought into a theory which says, if you're not greedy and if you work for the common good, you will have success: the team will win. No wonder Limbaugh is incensed. Is this Communist football or what?

[Hat tip: Tobin Wrote]