You
could sum up Bill Belichick in the word determination. I’ve read biographies of
Julius Caesar, Saddam Hussein, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas
Jefferson and none of them show the determination I read about in Bill
Belichick. The book is filled with stories about people arriving and seeing his
car there at dawn and leaving, with his car still there, at midnight. This is a
guy who loves and obsesses over one thing above all else and has catapulted
himself to the top of his world: professional football coaching.
What are Bill Belichick’s key qualities that make him such a
great coach?
I identified
three qualities that are crucial to Belichick’s success. The first is his determination
and willingness to work harder. With absolute dedication to football, Belichick
is famous for being the first in the building and the last out. This is a guy
who will just outwork you straight up every single time. The second is his curiosity.
An ideal conversation for the coach would feature very few words from him,
maybe just a few questions, and a ton of speaking from the other. In
conversations he seeks to learn. This is also the man who as a 6-year-old was
watching tape with his dad in the living room. He was obviously always
interested in football and his curiosity made him learn more than anyone else.
The last quality is that he’s humble. He famously says after Super Bowl trips
that “now we’re five weeks behind the rest of the league.” He doesn’t take
victory for granted and knows how to lose, having spent plenty of time losing
as the Cleveland Browns head coach before he went to the Patriots. He also
expects his players to be humble and doesn’t let star players coast on their
success, calling out failures wherever he sees it.
What weaknesses does Belichick have?
I see
that Belichick has trouble building personal relationships with his players
built on anything other than professional success. He has never shared a dinner
with Tom Brady. He really relies on his record to gain the loyalty of his
players, so as long as he keeps on winning it’s okay. For now he has been
winning, but if he ever doesn’t win the division for some reason, he may find
trouble.
Is Belichick a cheater? How much has it helped him?
When
Bill Belichick interviewed to be the Special Teams coach for the New York
Giants under Ray Perkins, Perkins listed three words: consistent, right, and fair.
He asked Belichick which word didn’t belong in the playing of football or any
other game. Without any hesitation, Bill said fair and was hired. Belichick has
always understood, as have most other coaches, that it is crucial to get any advantage
you can get. He generally doesn’t cheat, though he will push the rules to their
limit and got hung out to dry in Spygate, when he illegally taped other teams’
practices. I think this is cheating, but it hardly does anything to diminish
Belichick and the Pats’ success. I hate the Patriots with all my heart, but you
have to recognize that even after getting caught and ceasing the process, they
had an undefeated regular season and made it to the Super Bowl. As for
Deflategate, the book convinced me that it had much more to do with Brady than
Belichick. Pushing the rules to their limit is usually worth it, like when a
disgruntled former Dolphins player, upset with how Nick Saban left the team in
2005, handed the Dolphins playbook to his new Head Coach, Bill Belichick.
How much of the Patriots’ success is Brady and how much is
Belichick?
I think
if you ask Tom Brady or Robert Craft, they will tell you that Brady is a
special, once-in-a-lifetime quarterback, though Belichick and the coaches would
disagree. They don’t find him a special. As for me, I think that Belichick
needs a truly great Quarterback, or his program would likely fall flat, but it
didn’t and doesn’t have to be Brady. Belichick is a great scout and would have
found another like Roethlisberger or Rodgers if he didn’t have Brady. Brady’s
success is his own, but another QB could have been similarly successful in
Belichick’s system so long as he had the smarts to keep up. I doubt any other
QB would get to five Super Bowl wins though, maybe just 3-4.
What’s the Belichick-Brady relationship like?
I got
the vibe that their relationship is not great and worsening. The two of them
have always been professional and not friendly. Belichick would bench Brady the
moment he believed another QB could do it better, but for now that’s not true.
I think both of them are desperate for the other to go so that they can prove
their greatness solo. It got worse when Belichick threw Brady under the bus for
Deflategate and when he drafted Jimmy Garoppolo. Belichick has apparently long
told associates he wanted a shot at winning the Super Bowl with another QB and
I think that Brady would say the same about him. People often ask the owner, Robert
Kraft, when he’s gonna fire Belichick and he’s been known to respond, “when he goes
8-8.” Brady, when asked if Kraft and Belichick had the “appropriate gratitude”
for his achievements responded, “I plead the fifth,” and, “that’s a tough
question.” This year, Brady didn’t show up for organized team activities in May
and it seems like as the QB approaches retirement that he doesn’t care so much
about his coach anymore.
Conclusion
This is
a solid book though a little longer than necessary and could probably benefit
from being cut down from 600+ to 500 pages. I really liked it though as an
analysis of not just Belichick but the entire NFL as a business and a
competition. It’s an amazingly in-depth study of how these teams and especially
the coaches work and relate to their players and owners. Anyone with an
interest in the NFL over the last 15+ years will definitely be entertained by
this biography.
Miscellaneous Facts:
- Bill’s father, Stephen Belichick, was the equipment manager for the Detroit Lions and one game, when losing 24-0 to the Packers in 1941, they put him in the game and he returned a punt for a 77-yard TD.
- Bill caddied for former Vice President Spiro Agnew and snapped a football to Johnny Unitas at his dad’s camp.
- Bill attended Andover Prep Academy as a fifth year player at the same time as Jeb Bush, who was “among the regular marijuana users”
- Belichick is close personal friends with Jon Bon Jovi from his time as Defensive Coordinator for the Giants. Bon Jovi was a fan and attended practices.
- Since Tom Brady took over as the Patriots starter, Chad Pennington is the only other Quarterback in the division to win the division since then, winning it in 2002 for the Jets and 2008 for the Dolphins, the year Brady missed to injury.
- Tom Brady is 11-6 against Peyton Manning.
No comments:
Post a Comment