New England Patriots Forums - PatsFans.com Patriots Fan Messageboard

Storm clouds approach Dallas Cowboys - Peter King - SI.com

considering all the depressing threads..here is something +ve somewhat from peter king of all people

Quote:

The Way We Were

Bill Belichick vs. Paul Brown

Similar? Impossible. Look at their sideline dress. Brown was the spiffiest dresser in NFL history, with his business suits (pleated pants), striped ties and smart fedoras. Belichick wears a gray hooded sweatshirt; not a very nice one, either. But that's where the dissimilarity ends.

Brown was brilliant, calculating, acerbic, intensely private and got fired by Art Modell as the coach of the Cleveland Browns. Sound familiar? Brown invented the facemask, the draw play, playbooks, training camps, college scouting, full-time coaching staffs and messenger guards. Belichick invented none of those. He just refined so many things. And he was a disciple of Brown's. He read books about him, asked Modell about him, took great pride in being in the same profession. Do they have something like Spygate in common? Probably not, though in Brown's day there was nothing like the intense scrutiny from the media and public that Belichick has faced in his career.

Brown invented continuing education for coaches with his film study and play-charting and long coaches' meetings. A couple of weeks after his second Super Bowl victory with the Patriots, Belichick flew to Baton Rouge and spent two days with his former defensive coordinator at Cleveland, Nick Saban, then the LSU head coach. Because Belichick knew every team on his schedule would be studying what the Patriots did and parrying their greatness, Belichick went to work with Saban on disguising what the team did on defense. Then he went to Florida to pick Jimmy Johnson's brain on the draft. Then, on vacation, he listened to books-on-tape of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life' and It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy.

One thing both men believed in strongly: the football team as team. No player was bigger than the team. A cliché, but Brown lived it, and Belichick continues to. Brown never minded long contract holdouts, and he was going to bend to the demands of no man. That never came into play in Cleveland much, but when he ran the Cincinnati Bengals, Brown never lost many contract battles. Belichick let Bernie Kosar go in Cleveland and did the same in New England with Drew Bledsoe; his first Super Bowl in New England was won with a core of 17 lower- and middle-class free-agents signed before the 2001 season and a sixth-round quarterback named Tom Brady.

Brown won three NFL championships with the Browns, the same number Belichick has won in New England. I'm sure I've missed about 53 other things Belichick had in common with Brown.