Bill Belichick has always been admirably contrarian, a stubborn individualist who refuses to be pressured by external opinion or the crowd. No outsider, therefore, could have changed his mind about accepting a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Trump a week after the storming of the U.S. Capitol. The change could only have come from within, from something he saw with his own retinas and judged with his own conscience.
Coaches always go to the tape. And the tape, that hideous tape, does not lie. Had Belichick stood by his acceptance, he would have risked handing a propaganda victory to militia terrorists, white supremacists, cop killers, avowed would-be assassins, the neckbearded scum who chased a Capitol Police officer up those Capitol stairs.