Picking the Brain of Bill Belichick

"Josh is smarter than me," Bill Belichick says about Josh McDaniels, the apprentice that seeks to school the scholar when the New England Patriots play at the Denver Broncos on Sunday.

Proud, confident, keep-it-close Bill Belichick is saying an opposing coach has the intellectual goods on him? It is common NFL conjecture that Belichick is the league's smartest coach. He just leaped over Curly Lambeau into third place in all-time winning percentage of coaches with at least 150 victories. The list? George Halas (.682), Don Shula (.666), Bill Belichick (.632).

With the Patriots, he is 119-46. That is a .721 winning percentage.

But eight seasons around McDaniels with the Patriots gave Belichick all the time he needed to see that McDaniels was the type of coach who could survive a firestorm in his Broncos debut and then push the team to a 4-0 start. McDaniels reportedly told his team when he first met with them months ago that beating New England was high in his priorities.

Destroying any team -- McDaniels' included -- is higher on Belichick's.

"I don't know all of the details about that, but what I see on the field is they have played well, sound, committed, taken advantage of opportunities from miscues," Belichick, in an exclusive interview with FanHouse, said of McDaniels' Broncos. "I'm not surprised. I really don't worry too much about what everyone else does. I try to coach the Patriots. See that we do a decent job.

"Every time our team walks on the field, I expect to win. We expect to win. I'm sure the Ravens last week expected to win against us. So, I imagine Josh and the Broncos expect to win. I can't imagine being a coach and not expecting that."

Belichick said when he was a first-time head coach in Cleveland in 1991 and he played his old Giants for the first time, he did not view that game as defining. He had served as the Giants' defensive coordinator; McDaniels last season served as Belichick's offensive coordinator.

"You know the players," he said. "You know the team. But the fact was I approached that game no differently than the season-opener against Dallas or the Week 2 game against New England or the Week 3 game against Cincinnati," he said, rattling them off in order before remembering that Week 4 re-introduction to the Giants, a 13-10 loss.

Belichick is too seasoned, too big picture to worry about reducing this Sunday's meeting to a personal confrontation.

"I've been in this game a long time," Belichick said. "There's something personal every week. A few coaches and players that I've worked with or have some kind of relationship with are on the other sideline every week. You greet before the game. You get on with it. That's a weekly theme. It's a book where you keep turning the page. You get to the end on Sundays and then you turn the page. Every game is big. The game you're playing is the big one. That is the most important chapter. Then you turn the page."

He is asked how he's been able to do that -- turn the page -- from his 2007 taping scandal.

"Right now, I am only thinking about the Broncos,'' he answered.

He is asked if he traded defensive end Richard Seymour to the Raiders in part to replace the No. 1 draft pick that the Patriots lost in league penalties due to that taping scandal.

"The trade was made for the best interest of the football team," he answered. "Period."

He is asked how long he will continue to coach and what has been his foundation for success.

"In the offseason, I thought about the 2009 season," Belichick said. "It's all week to week. The Falcons before the Ravens. The Ravens last week. The Broncos now. Long term for me is six days. There are a lot of layers involved in what we have tried to build here. That is more a historical question that a lot goes into it."

So, rather than try to snow his way through it, Belichick focused on something in which he takes obvious pride -- his ability to adapt. Like his teams, which play several combinations of schemes, Belichick is fond of coaching in chameleon fashion.

[Belichick] is asked how he's been able to do that -- turn the page -- from his 2007 taping scandal. "Right now, I am only thinking about the Broncos," he answered."You watch us play," he said. "You know we aren't the same team every week or every year. Last year, we had to find our way to win 11 games a lot different that we did the year before. We find ways to win football games. That's our philosophy. I haven't always done it the same. One year I coached quarterbacks. In '05 I spent more time with the defense than the offense. What I do is a reflection of what needs to be done."

His work usually starts at 5 AM and sometimes he finds himself wrapping things up as late as midnight. His bond with the Kraft family and their ownership style of giving him freedom to make football decisions helps to make things work, he said.

His football passion has always been innate, his core, he said.

"I love the game, I love what I am doing -- it sure beats working," Belichick said. "I enjoy coming to the stadium every day. No matter if it's the offseason program or free agency work or the draft. I enjoy preparation, team building, relationships, competition, all the things involved. It's a very complex game. Very challenging. And fun."

Belichick is aware of the criticism his vast NFL head-coaching tree has received. Recent NFL head-coaching stints including Romeo Crennel in Cleveland and Eric Mangini with the Jets and Nick Saban in Miami fizzled.

He does not like the characterization of "failure" for them.

"There is not much job security in the NFL anymore," Belichick said. "It's the way it is. I see coaches like Mike Shanahan and Jon Gruden and Jim Fassel and Brian Billick and Mike Martz out of the league right now, coaches that have won Super Bowls or played in them, not just coaches but guys who built things in the league. They're not in. That's the way it is and I find it hard to accept that those guys are out of the NFL, a lot of good coaches not coaching, and the guys that coached for me are failures. I don't hear that all of those guys are failures. So, I don't know about being able to say that."

So, here comes McDaniels off to a rapid start with a chance to alter that discussion. With a chance to school the scholar.

He joined Belichick in 2001 from Michigan State, where he had worked with Saban.

"We brought Josh in to work in the scouting department and to break down film for the defensive coaches," Belichick said. "He did everything we asked. There are a lot of impressive things about him. Very smart. The type of person you can give 10 different things to do and ask him about one of them and he will be right on top of it. It won't be he has done two or three of them and he will have to get back on the others. He would have something on each thing. The type of person who can juggle a lot of balls. And know where they all are.

"The type of person no matter how much you give him he can handle and keep in departments. He comes back to you and says here is what I found. Here's what else I found that you didn't ask for. And here is something I found once I got into it, so, I changed the direction and found this that I think will be more useful."

That's the way young Bill Belichick did it for Ted Marchibroda when Belichick got his first crack as a $25 per week special assistant for the Baltimore Colts in 1975.

When McDaniels feuded with quarterback Jay Cutler and before shipping the QB to the Chicago Bears, McDaniels called Belichick.

"We talked," Belichick said. "He had to bring it up. It's not my business.

"He had a couple of times where he could have interviewed for other jobs and didn't. After that, we started talking about things from a coordinator point of view and things he might not see with me as a head coach. We both knew he probably would have an option at some point; he would be a head coach and I would be looking for a coordinator. We shared information on that freely and candidly. He helped me. I answered his questions. We talked for hours and hours and it went both ways."

He has already seen similarities in his Patriots and McDaniels' Broncos in video study. He expects to see more similarities on Sunday.

Both coaches pound home to their players the importance of situational football. Both teach their teams in this manner.

This is the way Belichick explains it:

"It is basically one-play situations," he said. "Every play is key to the game. Sometimes it comes down to one play. How you perform in that situation, whether it is red zone or onside kick or whatever. Be organized. Everyone understands what we are trying to do. Have a plan and do it. Know the rules. There is always something new and challenging to show players. It makes the game exciting. We try to work on those situations like every team does. It's definitely important to us. You have to have everybody know what to do -- not one guy telling everybody else what to do."

Belichick said he does not give a lot of advice. But he does remind all that a coach cannot fully implement his program in four games. "It just doesn't happen for good in the first month of a season," he said. "It takes longer than that."

Regardless of the surface.

Some might take that as a bouquet tossed McDaniels' way before the scholar schools the apprentice.

"This season is a continuation, absolutely," Belichick said. "We've had transition in coaches and in the front office but we've continued to try and build on the foundation we already established. It's different every season. Yeah, some of the things I'm proud of. The challenge ahead is Denver. Not what we have or haven't done or reflection."