Rough Year For Belichick, Top To Bottom
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Posted Under: 2000 Patriots Season
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Last in a series on positional analysis of the 2000 Patriots. Today: Special Teams/Coaching.
What was rougher for Bill Belichick, getting the head Patriot job or executing it?
From a rambling resignation speech in Joisey, to weeks of legal posturing by both the Patriots and the Jets, to a concilliation between Bill Parcells and Bob Kraft, to the foreiture of the Pats’ first round pick, Belichick got the Patriot head coaching job.
Then, from the dismissal of strength coach Johnny Parker to the losses of Shawn Jefferson and Steve Israel to free agency to injuries to Adrian Klemm and J.R. Redmond to the brutal first half of the season to the devastating losses to the Jets his team never recovered from to Law getting busted to the final play of the season that took 45 minutes to actually play out, whatever honeymoon Belichick might have enjoyed was long gone by that time.
Where things stand right now, Patriot Nation still isn’t quite sure if they’re better off with Belichick than if they’d kept Pete Carroll and that first round pick. Belichick’s 2000 Pats finished at 5-11, their fourth straight declining win season, but three games worse than the 1999 season that got Carroll fired. When the season was over, the Patriots seemed to have more turmoil at season’s end versus 1999.
Basically, there are two kinds of people when it comes to Belichick. There is the rose colored glasses crowd. Then there’s the bunch who also claim to be leading experts on the Cleveland Browns from 1991 to 1995. Both sides have great cases when they talk about their like/dislike for Belichick. Sadly, when put together, it doesn’t really add up, nor is it intended to cheer you up.
The rosy folk still think of Belichick as the best defensive mind in pro football. Belichick came right in, caught the players’ attention in their first meeting, changed the country club atmosphere that existed under Carroll, and began to pick up the pieces left over from the Carroll regime.
But the Dawg Pound East has other concerns. The best thing about having Belichick in their opinions is that at least the Jets don’t have him anymore. No matter, the Jets still managed to confuse Drew Bledsoe plenty without Belichick running their defense. Worse, Belichick has yet to shake off the rap that he is a better defensive coordinator than he is a head coach, and that if Draft Day 2001 goes like many of his Cleveland drafts went, the Patriots were perhaps better off if Grier was still here.
Belichick wore two hats in 2000. He was defensive coordinator as well as the top man. Whether that was a major factor in 2000 won’t be fully borne out until 2001, when former Jet/Patriot colleague Romeo Crennel returns to Foxborough as defensive coordinator. Belichick will have more time to concentrate on head duties in 2001, and both Belichick and Crennel will be watched very closely by experts and casual fans.
What Crennel will be watched for is how much intensity returns to the defense. Crennel said in his opening press conference that he intends to bring a hard-hitting style back to Foxborough. If Crennel also wants to upgrade the pass rush, he’ll have to do it without Chris Slade, who was released by the team last week. This is an area that Belichick has also expressed a desire to upgrade.
Charlie Weis will also come under close scrutiny in 2001. The Patriots have had three offensive coordinators since Ray Perkins left with Parcells. Larry Kennan came off as unimaginative and unable to fully utilize Bledsoe’s talents (never mind all the injuries to key offensive players in the playoffs, mind you), but Ernie Zampese made Kennan look like a dadblasted genius.
Weis was expected to open things up with the Patriot offense in 2000, but instead fared no better than either of his two predecessors. Much of what ailed the Patriot offense in 2000 can be traced to the woes of the offensive line, and Weis did have the smarts to can the option plays assigned to Michael Bishop when they continued to fail. But Weis really didn’t get the chance to showcase what he could do.
Belichick, meanwhile, had some of the same stuff happen to him in 2000 that happened to Carroll. Stupid penalties. Player discipline. Faulty execution. What made matters worse for Belichick in 2000 was that his dual role as defensive coordinator caused his great defensive reputation to take a hit, as the defense suffered collapses at critical times in some games this year.
With Crennel running the defense, Belichick will have to try and get a better grasp of the big picture. Administrators, execs, school principals, and those people-in-charge of whatever it may be, all love to tell you about how well they see the “big picture”. Belichick needs to quickly become one of those people.
It is a foregone conclusion that Belichick will be unable to keep his grubby hands 100% off of the Patriot defense. But his team has lots of needs, of which his defensive expertise is of no help at all.
Stop making special rules for some ball players (cross reference: the Buffalo Border Bust). Everyone flys, unless they want to retire and join Pat Summerall in the broadcast booth.
Demand more attention from the players. If Belichick tried to do so in 2000, it wasn’t enough. Those stupid penalties are the most telltale sign, and you don’t need to be in practice sessions every day to notice that.
Administrate, don’t coordinate. The top three of the Patriot coaching staff ought to be a cohesive unit, as all of them wound up in New England, skirted off to Exit 16-W, then found their way back to US 1. Belichick has two hand picked men who can and should do quite well in their respective positions, and the two men should have a pretty good idea of what their boss is all about. Belichick should sit back and let Weis and Crennel run the X’s and O’s, while he as head coach should focus on player behaviour and development, game strategy, and have maybe a little input on the defense and overall game planning.
Have a great draft. No, this has nothing to do with coaching. But Belichick wears this hat also. And if he indeed does improve in all of the above critical areas, none of it will mean a hang if he has a lousy draft. This is the biggest area of concern from the Dawg Pound East. Have a plan, draft the right guys, and you might be able to slide on some of the above areas of improvement.
Belichick will get at least one, most likely two more years to show major gains. If nothing else, he is much too good a football mind to dismiss quickly as a coaching bust. The GM deal is another story, but Belichick deserves the benefit of the doubt until there is ample reason to show otherwise.
If nothing else, some observers believe that the Patriots are a better team now than they were in 1999, and that several of the 2000 losses were just bad luck. If the offensive line can be rebuilt and the pass rush upgraded, then the fortunes of 2001 can really fall squarely on the shoulders of Belichick.
If Troy Brown is the best punt returner in the business, how come he didn’t get to go to Honolulu?
Simple. Brown isn’t the best on paper. Everyone in Foxborough just thinks he is. And with good reason.
Statistically, Brown was the seventh best punt returner in the league with a 12.9 yards per return average. He was third in the league in total punt return yards with 504.
But what he meant to the Patriots was more than just raw numbers. He was the choice of this writer as 2000 Patriot MVP. What little the Patriots could do offensively this year, Brown helped as much as he could with returns that got the Patriots decent field position. Brown’s punt returns themselves might remind some folks of Gale Sayers or Walter Payton from a standpoint of cutbacks, grit and determination. Brown was without a doubt the main offensive weapon for the Patriots in 2000, and will again be counted on to do the same in 2001.
The Patriots had a hard time settling on a kickoff return man. Kevin Faulk and J.R. Redmond shared much of the duty until late in the season. Free agent pickup Curtis Jackson had some nifty kickoff returns, such that he warrants a closer look at Smithfield in August.
Punter Lee Johnson went into the NFL record books this year, both for negative reasons. He became the NFL’s all time leader in number of career punts. He also became the all time leader in number of times being on the losing team.
Johnson did okay (42.7 average, fourth in the league in number of punts inside the 20) stat-wise. But he will turn 40 in November. Someone will most surely be brought into camp to compete for Johnson’s job, though don’t bet against him returning for still another season.
Adam Vinatieri rebounded from a sub-par 1999 season with a much improved 2000 campaign. He hit all of his PATs and 82 percent of his field goals. There was talk of Johnson handling the kickoff duties in 2000 because of Vinatieri’s penchant for short kickoffs, but Vinatieri did all the kickoff duty in 2000. While Vinatieri is likely to retain placekicking duties in 2001, Belichick may want to keep looking around for a kickoff man if there is roster space available. If he should also be a decent punter, Johnson may be shown the door.
This concludes this series on the positional analysis of the 2000 Patriots.
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