We knew 2024 would be bat-bleep crazy long before the new year arrived.

But no one had odds on “We have interviewed Bill Belichick for our head coach opening” being posted on X by the Atlanta Falcons during an NFL playoff game in which Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers demolished the NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles 32-9.

TB who?

That capped a wild NFL Wild Card Weekend that saw the 71-year-old Belichick anointed as the next coach of the Dallas Cowboys on social media as America’s Team was getting whacked 48-32 at home by Green Bay on Sunday. Five of the six games were decided by 14 or more points.

For those keeping score, the Packers have now won more playoff games at Jerry World (3), than the Cowboys (2).

Today at noon, the Patriots introduce the 37-year-old Jerod Mayo as their 15th head coach. Mayo was a freshman at Kecoughtan High School in Hampton, Va., the last time the Patriots played a game not coached by Belichick.

Full insanity barely two weeks into 2024.

We’ll get a healthy swig of sobriety on Friday as Red Sox “Winter Weekend” returns to Springfield.

“Take a snow day for a snow job!”

Last year, the fan Q&A with John Henry and Chaim Bloom turned into a reenactment of the Salem Witch Trials. It now seems like the last time Henry took direct questions from the press or public was on Yaz Day.

This time, “Winter Weekend” returns without the Red Sox owner, or the team’s best player, in the Playbill.

D.J. Cinco Ocho will be spinning all the golden oldies. Among the Red Sox greats attending will be Hall of Famers Wade Boggs, Dennis Eckersley, Carlton Fisk, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz, and the always-effervescent Jim Rice.

Human shields all. No pitchforks allowed.

Red Sox President Sam Kennedy will be taking bullets for his boss from the media, along with Tom Werner, sometime during the festivities.

In much the same way all the bucks now stop at the desk with Robert Kraft in Foxboro, Henry remains at the fulcrum of all that was once right but is now wrong with the Red Sox.

The best way to keep tabs on Henry these days is via his wife’s Instagram feed. We’re glad Mrs. Henry and son Xander managed to escape from Iceland safely before it blew up Sunday. Let’s hope they don’t let this Xander walk when he wants a boost in his allowance.

Fenway Park has morphed into the coolest neutral site east of the Rose Bowl. Visiting fans often outnumber the locals – at least in terms of decibels and passion. Welcome to America’s Most Beloved Ballpark, in which the Red Sox play 81 games each year.

“Full throttle,” meet “empty grandstand sections.”

Not that it matters. This scribe was among the first of the lemmings to leap off the cliff onto the rocks of Great Boars Head when spring training tickets went on sale last week.

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

There’s no reason for Fenway Sports Group to be upset about this. They’ve slashed payroll. Kept the team below the competitive balance tax. And still had 2.67 million paying customers in attendance last season.

That represents 92% of fan attendance posted in 2018. That season, Boston won a record 108 games in the regular season and the World Series with a payroll of $233,200,428.

Adjusted for inflation, that 2018 payroll number would have equaled $289,465,230 in 2023.

The Red Sox payroll in 2023 was $197,650,647, via Spotrac.

So in 2023, the team cut $91,814,583 in payroll (adjusted for inflation) vs. 2018 and finished in last place. Yet it only saw an 8% drop in fan attendance.

And while the NESN numbers fell off, the Red Sox and every other MLB team have a sports betting revenue stream that did not exist in 2018.

Somewhere, LeBron James is smiling.

I have yet to see definitive proof that Chaim Bloom and Craig Breslow are not the same person.

Someone purporting to be Breslow was quoted Tuesday in the Boston Globe discussing the failing of the offseason that wasn’t.

“It sounds like kind of empty words to say we’re engaged in every path and trying to pursue every opportunity, but it’s true that we are, and they don’t always work out,” Bloom/Breslow said. “It’s been a challenge. I think a lot of teams are seeing that. Starting pitching is highly, highly desirable.”

Bloom/Breslow claims ownership “absolutely are still supportive of assembling a World Series team as quickly as we possibly can.”

He did not offer any idea in which decade that would occur.

The truth was nestled in the 14th paragraph.

“It’s going to require a step forward from the young position players. It’s going to require the build-out of a talent pipeline of arms that we can acquire, we draft, and we can develop internally,” Bloom/Breslow said.

Translation: “What you see is what you get.”

DraftKings has the Red Sox 2024 win total set at 80.5. It opened at 76 in 2023 before moving up to 78.5 by Opening Day. This time, the number is likely headed in the opposite direction.

It’s only this “high” because teams like the Tampa Bay Rays have slipped further this offseason than the Red Sox. For those into Powerball, the Red Sox are +4000 to win the World Series, +1800 to win the American League, +1100 to win the AL East, and +250 to make the playoffs.

And cashing any of those bets would make 2024 the wackiest year on record.

Bill Speros (@RealOBF and @BillSperos) can be reached at bsperos1@gmail.com.