The pads of paper are like little cobblestones that form the path to one of the greatest football minds of his day. New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick always has those notebooks with him, waiting for something as mundane as a practice schedule or as complex as an offensive system to be revealed, to spark his interest and demand to be remembered.
When New England plays host to the Indianapolis Colts today, the game will be viewed by many as a chess match between the most cerebral quarterback in the NFL, Peyton Manning, and the 53-year-old coaching mastermind whose game plans have launched the Patriots to three Super Bowl titles in the past four seasons.
But even as Belichick flourishes at the highest level of his profession, he is engaged in the equivalent of a postgraduate education program, an independent study tour that has taken him from Annapolis to Gainesville, from a cot in Ted Marchibroda's hotel room to Jimmy Johnson's boat.
At each stop, usually in the off-season and sometimes involving intensive film study, Belichick has picked the brain of his host, gleaning bits of wisdom about everything from Navy's run offense to Johnson's philosophies on drafting and contract negotiations.
Such sessions are common among college coaches, who freely share information about their schemes with coaches whose teams are not on their schedule.
Bear Bryant, the legendary Alabama coach, went to Texas one spring to study the wishbone. Current college coaches frequently visit Virginia Tech to learn some of Frank Beamer's special-teams techniques. But Belichick's forays are unusual in the NFL; limited time in the off-season and heightened paranoia result in most coaches avoiding anything more than the most informal sharing of information.
"He's a perfect example of what we've let slip away in the image of a coach -- the job is a teaching job," said Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi, who was the general manager of the Cleveland Browns when Belichick became the head coach there in 1991. "Bill certainly has a great deal of self-confidence, but he's got the humility to know that he can always learn from somebody that's successful. To me, the smarter you are, the more you want to learn."
Belichick met with Florida coach Urban Meyer while scouting his players, and they spoke about Meyer's spread-option offense. It was highly successful in Meyer's two seasons at Utah and is all the rage in college football.
Meyer and his offensive coordinator, Dan Mullen, were hosts to dozens of high school and college coaches eager to learn the high-scoring system. The only NFL coaches to visit were from the Patriots.
Mullen and McDaniels spent hours watching tape and drawing plays on a board. Of particular interest, Mullen said, was the intermediate passing game with an empty backfield. They discussed different pass routes, especially on plays using five wide receivers and plays that have an option route.
"I've actually seen them do some of the stuff we talked about," Mullen said. "You're not designing the option to get Tom Brady to run the ball. You're designing the option to cause issues for a defense, to get him to read the defense and then pitch it to another guy. Because he's a great decision maker, he could probably run the option."
"Your ego can't be so big that you're not going to borrow from other people," Paul Johnson, the Navy coach, said.
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