ONE is the most famous wearer of a hoody since Robin of Locksley. And the other is a forty-year old franchise quarterback who was once rated the 199th best prospect in the 2000 NFL draft but has just become the first signal caller in the sport’s history to acquire a full handful of Super Bowl rings. They are, of course, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, and tonight at Foxboro Stadium in Massachusetts, the most successful coach-quarterback tandem in the back pages of the Gridiron game will get started on making it an even half dozen. And all this in a sport where the very rules are shaped to prevent any particular team exerting a monopoly.
Where do you begin with these two? Well, the closest counterpoint to Belichick’s era of continual success in Boston is a certain Sir Alex Ferguson, only without the Scot’s winning charm and personality. According to Neil Reynolds, the Sky Sports analyst, Belichick, the evil mastermind who brought you Spygate (a 2007 rumpus where the Patriots were spotted recording New York Jets’ defensive coaching signals from an unauthorised location) and Deflategate (a controversy where the Patriots were found to have used deliberately under-inflated footballs in a Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts, leading to Brady being banned for four games and the team being fined $1m) is simply the best ever, quite a claim considering the regard in which legends such as Vinny Lombardi are held. The fact he isn’t always the best interview subject is another matter.
“As an interviewee, I’ve always found him very guarded - it always feels like he is desperate not to give away any trade secrets, or any information at all,” Reynolds told Herald Sport. “The only time you’ll get him to open up is when he talks about the history of the game or the Xs and Os - particularly the ones that don’t kind of affect his team. I tried to get a line out of him once about Tom Brady being such a great quarterback and all the said was ‘we are quite happy with Tom, we are happy with the way he is going.”
Belichick has been in post since the millennium - a 17-year stint which seems like an eternity in an NFL where you are doing well if you get three good seasons out of a running back. He is possessed of the kind of insatiable appetite for forensic viewing of videotape which Arsene Wenger displays when looking at young French attacking midfielders, plus Ferguson’s thirst for continual success and flair for re-invention. He surrounds himself with the best co-ordinators going on both sides of the ball, and generally recruits excellent character types who he demands incredible loyalty from. So strategic is he in his outlook that he can draft a college quarterback like Julian Edelman as a wide receiver, but keep his first ever NFL passing attempt in reserve until a crucial 51-yard touchdown pass to Danny Amendola in the 2015 play-offs. Any downtime he has between seasons tends to be spent on his boat, newly replaced and renamed ‘7 rings’ in reference to his Super Bowl wins.
Then there is Brady, an all-American hero with the model wife in Giselle Bundchen who perenially plays with a chip on his shoulder. “On his very first day of practice ... [Patriots owner] Robert Kraft told the story, and Brady kind of downplayed it a little bit,” says Reynolds. “.... he went up to Kraft and said ‘I am going to be the best decision this franchise ever made’. Which was quite a statement from a guy who was a second stringer at Michigan for a while. Brady always gives you the warm smile and the right soundbite but he is a fierce competitor. The players who have played against him say he gets a little bit whiny, a bit like a spoilt child.”
Each is spectacular in their own right. But together they are really special. Even the loss of Edelman for the season with a cruciate ligament injury can do little to put off the bookmakers ahead of their season opener tonight against the Kansas City Chiefs. “They are always going to be that tag of the villains of the NFL because everybody is a little bit jealous of what they have achieved,” says Reynolds. “But in a way they are the good guys, the underdogs, even though they always seem to win it. If you put them athlete to athlete against the other guys in the NFL - Julian Edelman against Julio Jones for instance - as a physical specimen it is not a contest. Or look at Tom Brady’s arm strength and athleticism compared to Cam Newton. But they are a bunch of intelligent tough overachievers who are the epitome of a team.
“It really is the perfect storm - they have got the best coach in the history of the sport in my opinion at the same time as the best quarter back in the game in Tom Brady. You could say that one kind of makes the other but the fact is it is the combination between the two of them is historically great. They just hit the re-set button and start again. With the same hunger as if they have never won it.”
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