New York Times
 

No free link. Excerpts.

Hell Week in Coaching Fraternity
Selena Roberts

The Oz behind the hoodie can hum every Bon Jovi classic from “I’ll be there for You” to “Never Say Goodbye,” even if he cannot identify the lyrics.

Bill Belichick is no sap for romantic attachments. He is a practitioner of disposable emotion. Say goodbye, Deion Branch and David Givens. Not there for you, Adam Vinatieri and Willie McGinest.

What was once a gruff quirk is now an obsessive pattern of behavior. The more glorified his mystique, the more Belichick’s anti-star prejudice expands. He mistakes star requests for complaints and their contract demands for insubordination, and locker-room dissent as a challenge to his brilliance.

He insists on humility from everyone but himself. But who knew the dimple-chinned Tom Brady, everyone’s favorite metrosexual quarterback, would be the accidental accomplice in building Belichick’s bubble? Who knew Brady would become an innocent tool in New England’s attrition of headstrong superstars?

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But which team is spiraling out of control? Patriotrs or Giants?

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And everyone thought Belichick was history’s favorite Svengali. More than Coughlin, it is Belichick who is losing his team.

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Belichick believes he whisks wins from his mind. He is a savvy tactician and deserves raves for converting his vast brain into dynamic success, but he is too quick to reduce his players into a parts-are-parts logic. He is capable of dismissing everyone with one exception: Brady. Belichick has not only coveted him as a quarterback, but as the unwitting enabler of Coach Hoodie’s no-stars legend.

Maybe as soon as now, Brady is finding out how easily he was manipulated by Belichick. In the giddy afterglow of three-ring success, as Belichick preached teamword and harrumphed disdain for divas, Brady was eager to please when he took one for the team.

He extended his contract with the Patriot in the spring of 2005 when he signed for six years and $60 million. Nice money, but it was well below his market value, ranking him fifth among quarterbacks in average salary.

The pay-it-forward philosophy was supposed to make salary cap room for his buddies. Instead, he was setting an impossible bar. How could a teammate complain about his coupon-clipper’s paycheck when scout Brady was okey-dokey with his underwhelming salary?

Troy Brown once noted before the Patriots played in the 2005 Super Bowl, “Bill always says the best thing we can do for our careers is to win games.”

As the Patriot’s owner, Robert K. Kraft, said that same week: “So many of our guys want to win and be part of this system. It creates an incentive where other free agents and players want to come here.”

It’s not incentive. This is punitive competence. Work harder, win more, earn less.

But Brady bought in. And Belichick took advantage of it. Instead of using the cap-room courtesy of Brady to re-sign stars, Belichick used his quarterback’s example as leverage to jettison anyone who didn’t fit a very Brady mold of the team guy.

So now, with his talented friends in other places, it’s Brady who is miserable, whose body language on the field spells out despair.

Is this dissent? Would Belichick see bad body language as rebellion?

He might not go that far. Or maybe he would. Arrogance is a slippery slope.

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Re: New York Times
 

Surprising she hasn't bagged a job at the Globe.

Re: New York Times
 

This topic sucks.

More doom and gloom crap.

Re: New York Times
 

Roberts is the worst of hacks, creating drama where none exists, spinning complexities out of simplicity, painting fictional villains and heroes with a broad brush on real people and real events. Her actual football knowledge is so meagre she tries to fool the public like a street corner magician flashing marked cards. Her earlier hit job was on Mangini, who has in a brief time exposed her crtiticisms of his tough training camp as the touchy-feely meanderings of a woman unfamilar with what it takes to win in a brutal, competitive environment. I'm surprised she's not reporting on politics and critiquing the US military. I'm sure we'd receive the same agitated fluff disguised as journalism.
One final note: Just another Boston Globe/NY Times hatchet job... she's probably in cahoots with Gorgeous Borges.

Re: New York Times
 

Mikey, why do you always focus on the negative in both your own posts and your links to stories? I'm just curious as I've seen that trend for quite some time now. I just want to know if you actually enjoy watching the Patriots, and if so, why you never post that way?

As for the article: fluff. We're 2-1, who knows how the rest of the season will go. As for all the psychobabble about the Patriots.. who cares? It's what has won us 3 SBs, so I'm not overly concerned about the method. Especially not when we haven't had a sub 9 win season in six seasons and have been to the playoffs every year save 2002.

I'd love to hear what this writer has to say after Week 17.

Re: New York Times
 

Give me a friggin' break! That article is pure speculation and conjecture. Doesn't the author have enough to write about since New York State has three NFL teams?

The Pats have a philosophy and it's working. I mean, the Pats are 2-1 with 13 games to play, 2-0 in the division. Yeah, the Pats are going to implode any minute now. Name one player the Pats have let go (recently) to come back and bite them on the ***** come play-off time? :p

Articles like this really make me angry...then again, maybe that's the intended result.

Re: New York Times
 

This stuff cracks me up. She's a reporter who works 500 miles away and she seems to have more insight than the Boston writers that cover the Pats on a regular basis. It's the same crap people were saying when Lawyer Milloy was cut and they were blown out by Buffalo. Remember Tom Jackson shooting off his mouth? My favorite part of "Patriot Reign" was when he tried to congratulate Bill Belichick after their superbowl win that year and Bill just told him %^$# and walked away.

Re: New York Times
 

That's not fair.

The last thread before this that I remember reading that was started by Mikey showed BB at the Brown/Harvard football game looking relaxed and happy. How was that knocking the team? Nor did Mikey endorse this article (which, as several people have pointed out, simply re-hashes every cliche of BB-bashing (yawn!))

Re: New York Times
 

True, perhaps it is that I only remember the negative postings more than the rest because of the reaction they get.

Re: New York Times
 

Don't dis da hoodie!