Brady, Belichick can weather this storm
There’s a lot to be learned in a town such as this so riddled with history and that also goes for sports, though there’s only one precedent for the record-breaking tandem of Bill Belichick, the coaching nonpareil, and Tom Brady, widely heralded as the greatest quarterback ever.
When fate brought these two together in 2000, neither offered a hint of what was to come.
Belichick wowed nobody while coaching the Browns, and his oddball demeanor in turning down the Jets job made him seem like the second coming of Clive Rush.
Brady? Having just been picked No. 199 in the sixth round of that spring’s NFL draft, he certainly had no trumpets signaling his arrival.
Yet what they’ve accomplished — seven Super Bowl appearances, five ending in triumph — has made them a combination for the ages.
Only Red Auerbach and Bill Russell accomplished more, collecting nine NBA championships in the 10 seasons Red was Russell’s coach.
Russell was a man of very few words in those days.
The joke was he planned to open a string of ice cream shops called “Unfriendly’s.”
But when he did open up, his insights were riveting, such as recalling, “I stepped into a tailor-made situation, and Red was the tailor.”
Would he have been the same player under any other coach? “I would have been the same, but I seriously doubt the results would have been the same.”
How did he accept Red being so autocratic? “We had the most essential ingredient in any relationship, which is mutual respect.”
How did Red handle him? “I don’t like the word ‘handle.’ I felt he was the best coach who ever lived and that I was the best player, so why would I challenge him? Just say we exchanged favors.”
If they quarreled, no one knew.
And that’s the way it’s been with Belichick and Brady up to now, but some in the media are champing at the bit to muddy those waters through speculation of a growing animosity between them.
In a way, it’s surprising that it’s taken this long.
As surely as nature abhors a vacuum, there have always been reporters turned off by tranquility, hungering to gnaw on the bones of controversy,
Auerbach and Russell paid them no mind, and here’s hoping Belichick and Brady won’t either, because we may never again see what we’re witnessing right now.
Can’t we simply enjoy it while it’s happening?
A century ago the great Rudyard Kipling made an observation that ought to be resonating in Gillette Stadium this morning:
“When crew and captain understand each other to the core, it takes a gale, and more than a gale, to put their ship ashore.”
Auerbach and Russell clearly bought into that concept.
If Belichick and Brady continue to do so as well, the forecast down in Foxboro should be a continuation of smooth sailing ahead.