09-25-2007, 05:12 PM
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#6
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PatsFans.com Supporter
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 19,949
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Re: Great story on Bill Belichick
That was a magnificent piece by a mediot who, on reflection brought on by the spectre of scandal, finally gets it.
"When details of the signal-stealing emerged a few weeks ago, I thought of something Belichick once told me about Taylor. Despite his bouts with drug use and his sometimes messy personal life, Taylor always gave his best effort -- such that it sometimes was -- on the field.
"Lawrence completely sells out on every play," Belichick said. "He doesn't care about his body -- or anyone else's for that matter. He will do anything it takes to win. Anything.
"The same thing that makes him [an unlikable] human being," Belichick added in a telling aside, "makes him one of the greatest players who ever lived."
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I believe the same is true of Bill Belichick."
See, that's what the majority of mediots have never realized - his best players (by and large) sense that and respond to and admire it and trust him implicitly because of it. Rodney has said on occasion they get mad at Bill, never hate him. He makes it his life's work to put them in a position to win. And he doesn't BS them or ever use them along the way to spin the heat off himself, as so many of the hugger coaches do. To the contrary, as Tom said, he protects them even at the expense of pissing some folks off royally. In their book that makes him not only a great HC but a magnificent SOB. The guy you want to go to war for and with.
Sad thing is I think Felger had much the same opportunity given to him early in Belichick's return here that this reporter had in NY. Because BB thought he had the (comparative) football intellect to benefit from it compared to the rest of the hacknied Boston sports media. But he pissed it away over the chance to make his bones on WEEI (including letting confidences slip) and Sports Final and I think the fact that Holley got Patriot Reign, not that Bill offered it - Holley went after it, tipped Felger over the edge. Holley can be trusted to maintain confidences shared with him in background even at the expense of not breaking the splashy story or jumping on the popular media spin. Doesn't even mean Holly won't be critical at times, but he always does it in context. He understands that we as fans want to know what they will do, not what a mediot thinks they should do. Belichick gave Holley the context, as he did Greg Garber, to figure him out. Nice to see in more than one instance it wasn't wasted.
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