Getty Bill Belichick
Former two-time Super Bowl champion Jim McMahon has never been one to mince words. On Wednesday, May 19, the Chicago Bears legend laid into New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, calling him a “lying piece of s***.”
McMahon crossed paths with Belichick in the mid-1990s during the final couple of years in his NFL career, and it’s safe to say they didn’t part ways on the best terms. McMahon was a guest on 850 ESPN Cleveland (h/t PFT) when he told an incriminating story about Belichick from 1995 when the former was a backup quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, whom the latter coached at the time.
ICYMI from RBS: @JimMcMahon tells his @Browns
story about his fight with @mlombardiNFL and calls Bill Belichick a “lying piece of s***”
Full Interview: t.co/oGNNA2ansT
McMahon’s story began even before that season started. He said:
After training camp [Belichick] called me in and says, ‘Hey we’re gonna have to release you. We’ve got a lot of guys hurt. We need some roster spots.’ … Then he said, ‘Hey no. But we really want you, we need you here.’ If I’m gonna be here, I move my family here. They’re gonna be here for six months with me. So don’t screw me around. And he said, ‘No, no, we’re gonna take care of you. … We’ll pay you to sit out.’
This entire concept is particularly damning — if it is true. It is against NFL rules for a team to pay a player to sit out. This would essentially mean the player is being reserved for a team, without them being formally under contract or counting against the salary cap.
McMahon Says He Attacked the Team’s GM & Demanded His Money After Not Being Paid for Weeks
McMahon suspected there was something fishy about the proposal he said he received from Belichick, so he sought legal advice. McMahon told 850 ESPN Cleveland things went from bad to worse, according to PFT:
So I called my attorney and said, ‘Can I trust this guy, he said they’re gonna pay me to sit out? He said it’s probably only gonna be one or two weeks.’ So I ended up finding a house … to rent, found a hockey team for my sons. So I called in the first week on a Friday to get my check and get the runaround. I’m thinking first week jitters. The second week I called in for my check, got the runaround again. I sat here for seven weeks doing nothing in Cleveland. … They finally signed me back week seven or eight. I dressed three games — the eight, nine and ten weeks — and I never got those checks. …
I confronted the G.M. at the time, what the hell was his name, [Michael] Lombardi, I think it was? I said, ‘Hey man, I need my money. My wife was just in a wreck and I don’t want to deal with insurance.’ He looks at me and says, ‘Well, maybe we’ll pay you, maybe we wont.’ And I lost it. I just snapped. I grabbed him by the neck and threw his head against the wall and said, ‘You’re gonna pay me my money.’ Then I started realizing what I was doing, right? So I stopped hitting him and he slid down the wall, I walked into the training room and called my attorney and I go, ‘Hey get me cut right now.’ … He called me back within two minutes and said they’ll release you if that’s what you want.
Somehow, this portion of McMahon’s career wound up landing him in Green Bay, where he won his second Super Bowl ring with the Packers as Brett Favre’s backup.
McMahon closed his story to 850 ESPN Cleveland:
So I walk back into the QB meeting, it was Vinny Testaverde, myself and I just say, ‘Hey boys, I’ll see you all later.’ And then the coach says, ‘Have you talked Bill?’ I said, ‘You can tell Bill to kiss my ass, lying piece of s***.’ Then I was gone. The very next day I was up in Green Bay.
Who Is Jim McMahon?
The oft-injured but talented and charismatic quarterback was one of the Bears’ faces when they rode the back of one of the greatest defenses of all time to a Super Bowl in 1985. McMahon played for the team from 1982 through 1988 and then bounced around among five teams from 1989 until 1996, when his career ended.
His leadership and moxie were his calling cards, so his candid and edgy comments should come as no surprise.
I wouldn’t expect to hear a response from Belichick, but it will be interesting to see if anyone has the heart to ask him for his take on the situation.