When Patriots coach Bill Belichick is eventually inducted in the Hall of Fame, much will be written about the Annapolis native.
A lot of it will read like this: The coach who guided the Patriots to multiple Super Bowls relentlessly studied film of his players and opponents. He was a stern taskmaster who demanded perfection and was gruff with those who tried to pry open his brilliant, football mind.
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That?s because members of Belichick?s coaching fraternity don?t know very much about him other than he?s one of the biggest winners to stand on an NFL sideline.
“Well, I know Bill,” Ravens Coach Brian Billick said. “I’m not close with Bill, but he’s always been very cordial and had a good professional relationship I don’t know Bill any beyond that.”
The people in the league who know the son of former Navy football assistant Steve Belichick best are his assistants. Ravens linebacker Bart Scott, whose team hosts the Patriots (11-0) on Monday night at M&T Bank Stadium, copied Belichick?s low-key fashion and interview style during a news conference after practice on Thursday.
Asked what impressed him about New England’s offense, Scott, wearing a hooded sweatshirt like Belichick, simply said: “the head coach.”
Belichick?s players have a hard time pinpointing the mercurial figure, who was fined $500,000 earlier this year for having defensive signals of the New York Jets filmed during a game.
When former Ravens linebacker and current Patriot Adalius Thomas was asked in a conference call with the Baltimore media this week if Belichick had a sense of humor, he said: “I guess. I don’t know how to describe him, but the way that you guys describe it on t.v., after you get to know him, he’s nothing like that.”
Still, Belichick, who has a record of 13-3 in the playoffs, refuses to let any of his players get too confident as the team looks to become just the second squad in league history to post an undefeated season.
“You must not know our coach,” Thomas said. “It’s not hard to stay humble. That humble pie will beserved hot. It will be served hot and often.”
Belichick was wistful and verbose when he spoke to the Baltimore media Wednesday, reflecting on his first NFL job as an assistant in 1975 with the Baltimore Colts. He almost coached in Baltimore again, as he was the last coach of the Cleveland Browns coach before the team moved to Charm City in 1996. He was fired after the 1995 season by then-owner Art Modell, who hired Ted Marchibroda as the Ravens’ first coach.
“Memorial Stadium will always hold a special place for me because that’s where I did start,” Belichick said Wednesday. “Even as a kid, going up to watch the Orioles and the Colts play, when I was young, growing up and following them. Going up there to 33rd street? When you grow up, you kind of get weaned onto those two sports, and that sticks with you [for] a lifetime, and it always will with me.”
