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Bill Belichick's Reaction To Andrew Luck's Retirement: 'I Didn't See That'

BOSTON (CBS) -- The NFL regular season is creeping up rapidly. It's crunch time for coaching staffs to try to pare down their rosters to 53 men. It's a rather busy time in every NFL head coach's office, and that certainly includes Bill Belichick's.

In fact, Belichick is so laser-focused on his job at the moment that he apparently didn't even catch the biggest NFL news of the year. Or so he claims.

When asked Monday afternoon for his thoughts on the shocking and sudden retirement of Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, Belichick expressed some minor surprise.

"Yeah, well, he's a good player. Yeah ... I didn't see that," Belichick said with a straight face. "But I don't really follow them."

Whether Belichick was telling the truth or offering up a "MyFace" type of response, he did say that he respects Luck's decision to walk away from the game.

"We all have to make our decisions," Belichick said. "He made his. I respect it."

The Patriots don't play the Colts this season, so it is possible that Belichick truly doesn't follow much news with regard to the football club in Indianapolis. But surely, news of this magnitude had to have been heard in every corner of the football world, even one with impenetrable walls like Belichick's.

UPDATE: In the transcript released by the team about 90 minutes after Belichick's press conference concluded, the Patriots seemed to clarify Belichick's remark.

"I didn't see that [coming]," the transcript said, adding an all-important word to complete Belichick's thought.

The Patriots conclude their 2019 preseason this week, and WBZ-TV has you covered. It begins Thursday night at 7 p.m., with Patriots Game Day, followed by kickoff at 7:30 p.m. Stay tuned after the game for Patriots Fifth Quarter, for live reaction and postgame press conferences from the Patriots' preseason finale.

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