From the NY media of all people:
The game plan was a stroke of genius, one of the greatest of all time. It was so perfect, so remarkable, that the entire thing — pages and pages of words and diagrams inside a big blue binder — now rests in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
So imagine what it was like 25 years ago, when the brain behind it — a bold, young defensive coordinator named Bill Belichick — stood in front of the 1990 Giants, just six days before his defense would take on the powerful, unstoppable, Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV. The wisdom of his words must have been overwhelming. The brilliance of the strategy blinding.
"Yeah," said former Giants linebacker Carl Banks, "we weren't very happy about it at all."
No, they were not. And the players were not shy about voicing their displeasure, yelling at the genius that his plan was "insulting." Belichick was addressing a room filled with players who just a few years earlier had formed one of the greatest defenses in Giants history. They had the second-best defense, statistically in the league — fourth best against the run.
But Belichick, then all of 38, began his presentation with a dangerous idea and damning assessment. He told his proud players "We're going to let Thurman Thomas get 100 yards."
"For the group that we had, we didn't want anybody to get that amount of yards," said Banks, a Giants linebacker from 1984-92, and now an analyst on the team's radio broadcasts. "But as he began to explain the plan, we kind of understood why."
And that's where the genius began to come through. Belichick had done his homework, more than most coaches would have done. He had uncovered things that others had overlooked. He had a daring idea that he wasn't afraid to use. And as always, he was going to explain it and teach it well.