Patriots duo here to stay
HOUSTON — The way Roger Goodell looks at it now, all this time after Spygate and Deflategate, if none of your other 31 franchises can beat ’em, might as well join ’em. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, the greatest quarterback-coach duo in NFL history, sat in the corner of a ballroom Monday morning, the Lombardi Trophy and Super Bowl LI MVP trophy glistening up on the podium, and listened as the NFL commissioner began what sure sounded like Inflategate. “Maybe one of the greatest players of all time,” Goodell called Brady. “Perhaps the best coach of all time,” Goodell said of Belichick. And soon: “It’s a great honor for us, for me personally, to have both of these guys here this morning, so Tom, come on up, get your trophy.” Perhaps Goodell has resigned himself to the likelihood there is no end in sight for the Patriots’ Evil Empire. You suspend Belichick’s great quarterback for the first four games of the season, and this day happens? Aren’t NFL dynasties supposed to be dinosaurs in this day and age? Bill Russell and Red Auerbach (nine championships together) are the greatest player-coach tandem in professional sports, with Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson (6) next up for Brady and Belichick, who are now tied with Jackson and Kobe Bryant. Brady and Belichick have an undying passion for the game, a relentless drive to be the best they can be and a Lombardiesque “winning isn’t everything, but it’s the only thing” mantra (occasionally to their own detriment). Why should Brady ride off into the sunset now if Belichick won’t? And why should Belichick ride off into the sunset if Brady thinks he has found the Fountain of Youth at 39? “I don’t feel 39. I hang out with a bunch of 20-year-olds, so that makes you feel pretty young,” Brady said. “When you’re in the locker room for 17 years, you kinda learn what to do and what not to do and what works for you. Football’s a demanding sport, it’s a demanding sport on your body. And your body is your asset, and if you are hurting all the time, football’s no fun. And when I was 25, I was hurting all the time. And I couldn’t imagine playing as long as I did because if your arm hurts every day when you throw, how can you keep playing? “And now, at 39, my arm never hurts. My body never hurts. Even after I get banged up, I know how to take care of it and jump on it right away so that I can feel good for a Wednesday practice, so it really allows you to be able to continue to improve ’cause you can practice. And hopefully I can keep passing that message on to a lot of younger athletes that want to do the same thing because football’s such a great sport, and I love it.”
Brady is the dream quarterback for Belichick, who spiked the notion the Deflategate discipline provided his quarterback any added motivation.
“With all due respect, I think it’s really inappropriate to suggest that in Tom’s career he’s been anything other than a great teammate and a great worker and has given us every single ounce of effort, blood, sweat and tears that he has in him,” Belichick said. “To insinuate that this year was somehow different, that this year he competed harder, or did anything to a higher degree than he ever has in the past, I think is insulting to the tremendous effort and leadership and competitiveness that he’s shown for the 17 years that I’ve coached him.”
And Belichick is the dream coach for Brady.
“Coach always says, ‘We play once a week, and there’s three hours where you need to be ready to go, and you gotta put everything aside during the course of the week and build for those three hours,’ ” Brady said.
Goodell was seated in the corner of the room when Belichick started sounding very much like a man not content to rename his boat “Seven Rings” (two as Bill Parcells’ defensive coordinator).
“As of today, and as great as today feels and as great as today is, in all honesty we’re five weeks behind [for] the 2017 season,” Belichick began, and Goodell could be seen smiling. “... We got some catching up to do, but it’s where we want to be, so no complaints.”
This was a Patriots team dear to Belichick’s heart.
“One of the great coaches in this game, that I had an opportunity to work for, Coach Parcells, one of the things that he said that’s always stuck with me is, in boxing, the mark of a great champion is the one who can get up off the mat,” Belichick said. “Kinda feel like that’s what we did [Sunday night].”
Goodell knocked them down. Brady and Belichick got up off the mat.