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The thinker: Bill Belichick's evolution from strategic boy wonder to consummate leader has him rubbing shoulders with the likes of Lombardi
Sporting News, The, Oct 7, 2005 by Dan Pompei
The journey of possibly the best coach in the history of the National Football League pauses in an auditorium in Foxborough, Mass.
Four days before the Patriots will play the Colts in a divisional playoff game, Bill Belichick stands before his team as he does every Wednesday. He tells them he has the utmost confidence the Patriots will be able to control the ball. That will enable them to slow the pace and prevent the Colts from scoring a lot of points. His plan of attack is noteworthy because before other games against the Colts, Belichick has preached the need to be very aggressive offensively and score repeatedly.
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Four days later, the Patriots hold the ball nearly 16 minutes longer than the Colts and limit their record-setting offense to its lowest point total of the season in a 20-3 victory.
"When you get to the point where you have that type of command," says Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis, Belichick's former offensive coordinator, "that's taking it to a different level.
"And the thing is, he's almost always right."
Belichick isn't one of those coaches who sits back like a water-skier and lets his coordinators drive the speedboat. He defines each unit's priorities for every opponent, then assigns the detail work to assistants. Weis says Belichick is the most analytical coach he has ever seen.
Belichick wins coach of the year awards in June and on the Tuesdays before games, not on Sundays. He has an intricate system of "pre-adjustments" in the defensive playbook that cover virtually any possibility. "He's always thinking about where we're going to go, how their receivers are going to attack the things we've done, that kind of stuff," says Patriots defensive coordinator Eric Mangini, who has been with Belichick for a decade. "Some guys may be thinking of one step. He's trying to think of all the different contingencies."
The point is not that Belichick is smarter than everyone else, though he probably is. It's that he's better prepared. So when the Patriots had a run of cornerback injuries last season, they were able to survive because wideout Troy Brown had been taking reps at corner since the off season.
But it's one thing to figure out what to do and another to be able to get it through the thick helmets of players. When Patriots owner Robert Kraft was considering hiring Belichick to be his head coach in 2000, he talked with some of the Patriots who had played for Belichick four years earlier, when he was the team's assistant head coach under Bill Parcells. Players told Kraft that Belichick prepared them for every possible situation and that he explained it in a way they could understand. And one more thing, according to Kraft.
"They said he was always right." The journey of possibly the best coach in the history of the National Football League winds through a practice in back of Gillette Stadium.
The Patriots' defense has only 10 men on the field. So every defensive player, even those not involved in the play, must run a lap around the field. "I'm not sure exactly who was wrong, and I don't care," Belichick says. "The next time we substitute, there will be more of an awareness."
Perhaps one of Belichick's greatest accomplishments has been one of his least conspicuous. In the era of the money grab and the cell phone touchdown celebration, Belichick has created an environment in which the team eclipses individuals. It sounds simple, but no other coach has been able to do it as he has.
As a first-time head coach at Notre Dame, Weis says he is trying to be like Belichick in many ways. More than anything, he wants to be able to inspire the Fighting Irish to tuck in their egos the way Belichick has gotten the Patriots to. "It's a tough concept today," Weis says. "How he's done it is beyond me."
If a team takes on its head coach's personality, it's easy to see how the Patriots put the team first. Self-promotion? Mr. Hooded Sweatshirt knows more about the Seahawks' backup gunners than he does about self-promotion.
But there is more to it. Belichick gets individuals to think as one with a concept he picked up during his days watching Navy practices as a kid--team discipline, team reward. If one member of the battalion was late, the whole battalion had to run.
Belichick offered to lift curfew one night in training camp if either center Dan Koppen or defensive tackle Vince Wilfork could catch a punt. Koppen didn't come close to the ball. "It was so bad, I'm surprised he didn't get hurt," Belichick says, chuckling. But when Wilfork fielded the punt, the team rejoiced.
The journey of possibly the best coach in the history of the National Football League slows down in Nantucket, Mass. On a quiet day last summer, he turns the pages of Random Family. It's a book about a mother and her children in a Bronx ghetto. About violence, drugs and unwanted pregnancies.
Earlier in his career, he was accused of not understanding his players. Now it is important to him that he open his eyes to aspects of society that are less familiar to him.
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