18-0

So, the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl, again. Sports fans in New England are really in danger of getting spoiled, what with the Patriots, Red Sox and even Celtics having so much success. During most of the games this season, I always felt that victory was assured, even when the Pats were down in the fourth quarter. You just know that they will always come back. I’m trying hard not to take this for granted and become one of those annoying, entitled fans—I just need to think back to the early '90s when their usual record was 1-15 or 2-14, not 18-0.

Anyway, to get myself ready for the playoff run, instead of watching a lot of TV hype, I read David Halberstam’s book on Patriots coach Bill Belichick, “The Education of a Coach.” It was pretty interesting to see how Belichick became the somewhat mysterious figure he is now: brilliant defensive coach, grim workaholic, uncharismatic hater of the media, icon of unfashionable sideline wear.

As the son of a longtime assistant coach at Army, Belichick started analyzing game film around age 9. When he entered the NFL as a coach, he felt he had to work harder than anyone else to prove he belonged, since he never played in the NFL and went to college at Wesleyan, not exactly a football powerhouse. He spent long days and nights studying film and was generally considered, even early in his career, to be one of the best at breaking down a game and figuring out how to stop other teams.

Belichick later tried to instill that same work ethic in his players. To him, being the one of the best players on the team also means that you work the hardest, not relax because you’ve reached the top. That, to me, that is the most impressive aspect of Belichick’s amazing run—he has somehow convinced players who are among the best at their positions to subordinate their egos to what is best for the team. He even gets them to believe they are underdogs, a ludicrous proposition.

The book was written after the 2005 season, so it doesn’t make any mention of the recent scandals that have plagued Belichick—the “Spygate” incident, where the team was caught videotaping the Jets’ defensive signals, the ongoing hostility with Eric Mangini, former Patriots assistant and head coach of the Jets, running up the score against terrible teams, and the bizarre tabloid allegations of “wife-stealing.”

In spite of all this recent dirt, Belichick seems to have gotten pretty much a free pass from the New England fans and media (a little less so from the rest of the country, who now revile New England with the kind of venom formerly reserved for the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys). This just goes to show the accuracy of one of Halberstam’s assessments of life in the NFL, which goes something like “as long as you win, people don't care what else you do."