During the game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Patriots coach Steve Belichick’s grimaces went viral. Now he’s spoken out about it – and he’s paying tribute to his father.

Munich – The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, they say. Or to put it another way: Like father, like son.

In the case of Bill and Steve Belichick of the New England Patriots, this is true – and also not true. Because while coaching legend Bill is the definition of a stoic facial expression brand “stubborn poker face”, son Steve has something more to offer.

In fact, he has so many different facial expressions – bad tongues would say grimaces – that Belichick became an internet hit during the game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Bill Belichick: permanently stoic, has never smiled, frowned, or made any facial expression whatsoever
Steve Belichick: https://t.co/AsLT8tQBdN

– Rodger Sherman (@rodger) October 4, 2021

And now the parallels with Bill Belichick come into play. Because when asked about the memes, the father came through. Because not only can he look stoic, he can also answer questions stoically.

“Yeah, I’ve heard about it,” Steve Belichick said. “I’ve seen some of these things. I couldn’t do anything about it. It is what it is,” the outside linebackers coach continued, “I don’t know. There were some good ones. But I heard about it.”

Uh-huh

What is going on with Steve Belichick?pic.twitter.com/K99yAzUSn4

– Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) October 4, 2021

This was brought to Steve’s attention after the game by former Patriots player Patrick Chung. “He told me about it. So he thought it was funny,” said Belichick, who understandably had other things on his mind that day, reuniting with Patriots legend Tom Brady, than meme successes on the net, especially after the narrow 17-19 loss to Brady and the Bucs.

“It was an eventful afternoon for the family, so there was a lot going on in my head outside of football,” he said. “But he understood that and took it in stride.”