Krause: Pats fans deserved better answers from Belichick

FOXBOROUGH – Bill Belichick isn’t normally a barrel of laughs – not to mention very forthcoming – even when the New England Patriots win.He’s even less so when they lose. But yesterday, on a day when they really, really lost, the taciturn coach set some kind of a modern record of being terse. In fact, he may have redefined the word.Every answer in his postgame news conference consisted of about a line ? and that’s including the ones that ended with inaudible grunts. All he needed to make the scene complete were Humphrey Bogart’s ball bearings from “The Caine Mutiny.”Here is an example of an involved answer after yesterday’s 33-14 playoff shellacking at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens: “Look, we didn’t play well. The better team won. We were outcoached, and outplayed, and that’s why they won and they’re moving on.”Some of the other give-and-takes were far testier.Someone asked him what he saw in the Ravens’ Ray Rice’s game-opening 83-yard touchdown romp.”We obviously didn’t do very well,” was the reply.Well, what does this mean, going forward?”Look, we just got off the field 10 minutes ago. The game’s been over for 10 minutes.”What does a loss like this mean?”Our season’s over.”But the basic context of the postgame remarks didn’t really waver from the “they ran it better, and defended it better, than we did” mode. Whichever Patriot minion had to transcribe this stand-up routine had an easy day.Want some more?He was asked that, given the Patriots finished ahead of the New York Jets, and the Jets won Saturday while the Patriots lost yesterday, what does that say about the NFL?”Same thing it says about the NFL every week,” he said. “The better team wins. It’s not about records. It’s about who plays better on the day you play. That’s what it’s always about.”Belichick may not always be predictable in what he does on the field, but he is in what he says off it. He plays his cards close to the vest – always. But sometimes, you know, you just feel like you need more – especially when the “team of the 2000s,” as the Patriots were named, gets thoroughly humiliated, at home, in the NFL playoffs ? and suffers its first home defeat in 10 years in the process.But if you were looking for a shred of introspection from Bill Belichick, you weren’t going to get it Sunday.Was there’s a sense of shock?”No.”What about Tom Brady’s interceptions?”Look, we made too many mistakes in the game to win and that’s obvious.”Have you ever been more disappointed?”Any time you lose, it’s disappointing.”Can you talk about Tom Brady? Was he completely healthy?”We just didn’t do very well as a team in any area.” Presumably, this means in the “healthy” department, too.Were there any indications, practice-wise, that this didn’t feel like you were ready?”No, we obviously didn’t play well.”Now, Lord knows this isn’t quantum physics. It’s football, it’s a sport, and nobody’s life and security are threatened because the Patriots lost. But on the other hand, fans pour an awful lot of emotion into this, they pay good money to attend – and also pay in terms of cable TV packages to watch. Being a fan isn’t cheap.And once in a while, fans deserve to hear their coach come in there and say “We stunk it up. I don’t know why, but you can be sure we’ll find that out and make whatever changes we have to make to ensure that the next time we’re in this position, we don’t stink it up.”And one of the most maddening things about Belichick is that he doesn’t feel it necessary to offer these mea culpas, even if – to be fair – these kinds of total no-shows have been few and far, far between in his era.Still, fans deserve more than “spotting them 24 points in the first quarter is not a good place to be.”No kidding, Dick Tracy.Steve Krause is sports editor of The Item.