CHANDLER, Ariz. — Bill Belichick has earned his place on the Mount Rushmore of NFL coaches. Which is appropriate, because he generally seems as unyielding and unemotional as the granite faces on that edifice.
Go back and watch him guide the New England Patriots to their first few Super Bowls earlier this century and you find a person who changes about as much as the monotone pitch of his voice.
Same hooded sweatshirts. Same disdain for those who question him. Same love of the processes that he drones on about; same appreciation for history — which also can get the eyes to glaze over.
You want a dissertation on the impact of left-footed punters in the NFL or a long-winded explanation of how the Patriots set their schedule, he’s your guy.
Even in the face of the biggest scandal ever to face a Super Bowl contender — an open investigation by the NFL into whether the team cheated in the AFC Championship Game to get here to face the Seahawks — doesn’t make him flinch.
In case you haven’t heard, he’s focused on Seattle.
He’s Still Bill.
“I think coach is always pretty consistent with how he’s dealt with our team,” said Tom Brady, his quarterback for the last 15 years and in each of his six Super Bowls as a coach. “You don’t ride the highs and lows of the season. Whether it’s one win or one loss, you just try to get better and make improvements, and you’ve got to play your best at the end.”
That’s where Belichick has wound up more times than most. The end. The Super Bowl.
He’s the winningest coach in NFL postseason history and is appearing in a sixth Super Bowl in 14 years. No one else has ever done that.
But this is the second allegation of impropriety to hover over him and tarnish his accomplishments, coming just seven years after he was found to have illegally videotaped the defensive hand signals of opponents. And, his critics will point out, he has not won a title since SpyGate in 2007.
“That’s a pretty glaring difference,” former Super Bowl-winning coach Brian Billick, now an analyst for NFL Network, said of the fact that Belichick earned each of his three rings before his illegal actions (proven or otherwise) came to light. “I would say in light of that, it would behoove Belichick to win this game Sunday to show that he didn’t need (to cheat) to win.”
That’s the outside perception. Inside — the only side that matters to Belichick — there is a different feel. And, apparently, a different Belichick.
“Bill cares deeply about all of us and we are all very well aware of that,” offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, in his second stint with the Patriots, said of his boss. “Whenever we do anything that’s good, he’s always very quick to praise the players and coaches.
“But he also knows that his job is always to look forward to the next opportunity, the next challenge, the next game, the next season. I think sometimes we can confuse that with a lack of compassion. But I think everybody who works for him or plays for him understands how much he cares about us as people.”
Even people who seem to be polar opposites of Belichick appreciate his coaching acumen. Even the person he replaced as coach of the Patriots.
“I know that when (Patriots owner Robert Kraft) was making his choice to hire coach Belichick, I had one opportunity to say something to him about that,” said Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, who was fired to make way for Belichick in New England in 2000. “I thought that was really a unique hire, a special hire and a guy that would really fit in well if he let him do what he was capable of doing. I think Bill is a very open free-thinker and a guy that needs that kind of control to be at his best.
“It’s worked historically and in extraordinary fashion,” he added.
McDaniels said it is Belichick’s consistency that he enjoys the most, but even that has evolved over the years. Defensive tackle Vince Wilfork, the second-longest-tenured Patriot behind Brady, said he often teases Belichick for going soft.
“He coaches the same way, he demands everything the same way,” Wilfork said. “But I think he’s got a little soft heart now.”
Part of that has come with the evolution of the game and the roster.
“This is a different era of football now with how the team has shaped up and how a lot of guys are younger guys,” Wilfork said. “You don’t really have that veteran team that he used to have. When I first came in the league, he had a veteran team that didn’t take much to get those guys going. But if I had to say anything, I think over the years he got a soft heart.”
Even granite, it seems, can be flexible.
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