Bill Belichick knows a good rivalry when he sees one.
The 72-year-old former New England Patriots head coach crossed paths with plenty of foes and developed rivalries with the likes of the New York Jets, Indianapolis Colts, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Though it wasn’t much of a rivalry, as his six-time Super Bowl champion-winning Patriots generally had the upper hand.
Now a pseudo-media mogul, Belichick is able to get a fresh, 30,000-foot view at the rest of the league’s harshest rivalries, and has quite the unique perspective on it.
As he and confidant Matt Patricia took a look at the Week 11 slate on his latest episode of the COACH podcast, Belichick dropped a classic one-liner to describe the heated nature between the division-rival Steelers and Baltimore Ravens:
“The Ravens and the Steelers can’t stand each other. They don’t do Christmas cards.”
“Those two teams, they do not like each other,” he later continued. “This is really going to be an interesting game.”
The Steelers (7-2) sit atop the AFC North by just a half-game over the Ravens (7-3), who head to Pittsburgh for the contest at Acrisure Stadium. As for Belichick’s analysis of the game itself? He kept it plain and simple:
“This is a little bit of strength on strength,” Belichick explained. “When you look at Pittsburgh’s defense and Baltimore’s offense… (Lamar) Jackson’s Jackson. Pittsburgh’s Pittsburgh’s defense. (Mike) Tomlin’s Tomlin. There’s a lot of familiarity there and a lot of dislike.”
As for Belichick himself? He had the upper hand against both of these squads, going 9-5 against the Ravens in his Patriots coaching career, and 14-4 against the Steelers.
