| |  Coach, QB rewarded for Super Bowl heroics
By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
NEW ORLEANS -- Looking like a couple guys functioning with a combination of too much partying
and too little sack time -- a common malady in this city -- New England Patriots
quarterback Tom Brady and then head coach Bill Belichick strode to the dais
for a too-early Monday appointment that marked the final news conference of
Super Bowl week.
Only a few hundred yards from where they stood, The Big Easy was beginning
its preparations already for Mardi Gras. Worker drones cleared away most
vestiges of Super Bowl XXXVI and girded themselves for a stretch of
debauchery that would elicit blushes from many of the NFL's button-down
clientele. In a week, "out" patterns will have been replaced by the
outlandish, and memories of Super Bowl XXXVI will be buried under a hail of
doubloons and trinket necklaces.
But for the Patriots' dynamic duo, this final appearance before jetting back
to Boston was a kind of Fat Monday, with apologies to the locals. In a place
noted for its female impersonators along Bourbon Street, the Patriots had
transformed the mighty and heavily favored St. Louis Rams into dynasty
wannabes, and Monday was their last curtain call.
Just as significantly, each of them took a giant step out of the lengthy
shadows of the guys looking over their shoulders, and established their own
personas. Known for years as "Little Bill" because of his relationship with
Bill Parcells, a mellower and more worldly Belichick escaped the notion he
was a flawed defensive genius. A clipboard jockey who had played backup to
Brian Griese at Michigan and second fiddle to Drew Bledsoe a year ago (throwing just three passes as an NFL rookie), Brady staked his claim as the newly respected leader of the Super Bowl champions.
Maybe the metamorphosis hadn't sunken in yet on either man, but it was
obvious to those in attendance, as Brady and Belichick did their best
to disguise the ramifications of a long night of partying with pithy but
provocative responses.
For the most part the queries probed at how Brady, a sixth-round draft
choice who entered the '01 season with but three pass attempts on his NFL
resume, could have so expeditiously emerged as a viable starter. From both
men came the same answer.
Hard work.
Belichick cited how, at the end of last season, the staff told Brady he had
to make strides in three key areas: Improve his physical strength, enhance
his throwing mechanics and his footwork, and learn to read defenses and
operate within the parameters of the New England offensive system.
"And let me tell you, nobody worked harder on this football team than Tom
Brady, nobody," said Belichick in stressing the long hours the second-year
quarterback devoted to self-help. "He made himself into a player, believe
me, by not just showing up for the offseason stuff. He showed up and he
worked his butt off."
After the offseason conditioning program, Belichick said, the staff voted on
the most improved player at various positions. Brady won the award for the
quarterbacks and running backs, earning him the right to a training camp
parking spot closer to the team's offices at tiny Bryant College in
Smithfield, R.I. Every morning, as he walked to his offices, Belichick had
to stare at Brady's canary yellow pickup truck in a prime parking spot.
Next summer, in its place, will be a new sports utility vehicle. And in
place of Bledsoe, who will almost certainly be traded away, will be Brady.
It is quite a quantum leap for a guy who at one point in 2001 was fourth on
the depth chart. The franchise's quarterback of the future, recall, was
supposed to have been Michael Bishop.
It turned out, though, that the future was just one pulverizing hit on
Bledsoe away from becoming the present. And it turns out as well that Brady
was the guy prepared to step into the breech.
One senses that the modestly talented Brady, who can go from mundane to
magnificent when the game is on the line as it was Sunday night, hasn't
reconciled yet his newfound celebrity. He will, he acknowledged, head to the
Pro Bowl in Honolulu, relax on the back with a pina colada, and try to
appreciate the events of the past four months. Then at some point in the
spring, he'll take home the coach's cut videotape of Super Bowl XXXVI,
invite some family and friends over, and watch in slow motion his rapid
ascent to Super Bowl winner.
Doubtless, the viewing will come after a workout.
"There's never going to be complacency for me," Brady said. "I know what got
me here and I'm not about the change my (work) ethic."
If there is a person who works even harder than the quarterback, of course,
it is his coach. A guy who failed to connect with players and fans during
his first head coach incarnation in Cleveland, and who resigned as coach of
the New York Jets after one day on the job, the intense Belichick seems
totally at peace with himself now.
Through hours of film review on the Rams, he crafted a brilliant Super Bowl
game plan, aimed not so much at pressure Kurt Warner as keeping him off
balance. You name the defensive front and the Patriots deployed in it on
Sunday night, including "46" looks, five-man lines and "over" and "under"
lines of every dimension. After blitzing 39 times in a November game against
the Rams, he called off the dogs and played coverage instead.
By outfoxing Rams coach Mike Martz, the reigning offensive whiz-kid but
still a guy yet to earn his first Super Bowl ring as a head coach, Belichick
became a big fish in a sea that used to serve as the domain of his former
boss, "The Tuna." A few years ago, had Belichick risen to the apex of his
profession, experienced the pinnacle with a Super Bowl win of his own
making, one wonders if he would have enjoyed it so much.
But think about how good this gets: On Sunday night Belichick coached the
biggest game of his career with his father, longtime Naval Academy assistant
Steve Belichick, on the Pats sideline. Dressed in a powder blue v-neck
sweater, dark slacks and tennis shoes, Steve Belichick was close enough to
hear every call his son made in the game.
Here was my kid, the elder Belichick certainly must have thought to himself,
who knew about football from the time he was in diapers. On Sunday night,
Bill Belichick outgrew the diapers and outsmarted the football world, and
validated himself as so much more than just a defensive guru miscast perhaps
as a head coach. And on Monday morning, he looked the part of genius,
shadows under his eyes notwithstanding.
"You think to yourself, 'Geez, I need to get some sleep,' but then you're
afraid to fall asleep and maybe wake up to find out it didn't really
happen," Belichick said. "But I'm pretty sure this one happened. And I'm
proud it happened with this bunch of guys."
Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer at ESPN.com
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SB XXXVI Over/Under
Accountability Factor
