PUPIL’S COURT
Should Belichick’s coaching tree give Giants pause?
Bill Belichick has been one of the greatest coaches in NFL history, winning five Super Bowls, but the success rates of his former assistants when they become head coaches, particularly in the NFL, has been spotty at best. The Giants are looking at both of his current coordinators.
Whoever coined the phrase “the apple does not fall far from the tree’’ has never sworn allegiance to the Jets, never occupied a bleacher in Cleveland’s Dawg Pound, never donned a sweatshirt of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish or Kansas Jayhawks.
In the hearts and minds of the fans in those football outposts, “Bill Belichick disciple’’ is, at best, a punch line, at worst a curse line. It has been and must be something to consider for the Giants as they weigh their options and sort through the candidates for their head-coach vacancy. Josh McDaniels and Matt Patricia are two of the five already interviewed — Steve Wilks went Tuesday and a sixth candidate, Eric Studesville, meets with the Giants on Wednesday — and anyone thinking about plucking the fruit off the Bill Belichick coaching tree must be forewarned: it often is rotten.
“It ’s a fair question,’’ Chris Simms, a former NFL quarterback and Patriots offensive assistant coach, told The Post. “There’s been some good ones. I think what’s different about these guys, these guys have been in this organization for a long time and they truly understand all the facets.’’
As for “these guys’’ Simms is referring to, McDaniels, an offensive guru, and Patricia, a defensive whiz, are expected to land head-coaching gigs in this hiring cycle; McDaniels with the Giants or Colts, Patricia most likely with the Lions. If they do, they will follow a fairly long line of former Belichick assistants tasked with spreading some of the master’s magic on organizations that want a taste of that New England success.
Alabama’s Nick Saban, who won his sixth national championship with Monday night’s thrilling overtime victory over Georgia, is widely l i nked to Belichick, but the two only spent four years together, when Saban was the Browns’ defensive coordinator from 1991-94. Sure, Saban no doubt took plenty from that experience, though the Browns were 31-33 in Saban’s stay in Cleveland before he moved on to Michigan State. Kirk Ferentz, Iowa’s head coach since 1999, is also always linked to Belichick even though Ferentz was under Beli chi ck’s t utel a ge for only three years as his offensive line coach with the Browns.
Others had more time working for or with Belichick and they did not go off on happy trails after leaving the nest. Romeo Crennel — really much more of a Bill Parcells’ branch than a Belichick protégé, — went 24-40 as head coach of the Browns and 4-15 with the Chiefs (including a 2-1 record as an interim head coach in 2011). Charlie Weis, an offensive coordinator for Belichick, was 35-27 in five years at Notre Dame and 6-22 in three years at Kansas. Eric Mangini, a defensive assistant and coordinator for Belichick, was 23-25 with the Jets and 10-22 with the Browns. Bill O’Brien is 31-33 with the Texans.
“Those g uys j ust got little pieces of Belichick,’’ said Simms, a lead NFL analyst for Bleacher Report and an NFL analyst for NBC Sports. “I don’t know if they understood the whole focus and thinking behind Bill Belichick.’’
McDaniels went 11-17 with the Broncos and did not get to finish out the 2010 season, fired with a record of 3-9 — his head coach- ing tenure lasting exactly as long (28 game) as Ben McAdoo’s with the Giants. Of course, Belichick went 36-44 in his f ive years in Cleveland, with only one winning season and one playoff victory, so there is something to be said for learning from past mistakes and the wisdom in granting second chances.
As always, nature/nurture is subjective. Is Belichick such a unique mastermind that no one can replicate his success, or is the Belichick-Tom Brady partnership so intertwined, take out Brady and the foundation crumbles? With Belichick as the chief architect, is any Patriots defensive coordinator more than a glorified button-pusher?
“The biggest mistake you can make, you got to be, especially on offense, got to be careful just because the guy has good numbers,’’ a former NFL head coach told The Post. “There’s more behind it. You got Tom Brady and you got a good football team behind this guy. Guys make mistakes hiring a coordinator off of a team that is loaded with talent. You can’t evaluate the guy.’’
McDaniels is lauded by Brady for the way he shapes and molds the Patriots offense, adapting the personnel in New England to f it each particular week. In Denver, though, McDaniels as a 33-year-old rookie head coach failed at Quarterback 101. Things got messy when McDaniels tried and failed to trade Jay Cutler to the Patriots for Matt Cassel,
“THOSE GUYS JUST GOT LITTLE PIECES OF BELICHICK.”
leading to a ruined relationship with Cutler, who was shipped to the Bears for Kyle Orton. Trying to win with Kyle Orton is different than sizing Super Bowl rings with Tom Brady.
“Everybody’ s going for a name,’’ the former NFL head coach said. “I’m sure the New England Patriots offensive coordinator is going to be on that list, but he had his try and it was a disaster. He wasn’t even bad, it was a disaster.’’
Here is where McDaniels and Patricia are different: longevity. Both have been with Belichick for 14 years — McDaniels in two separate stays interrupted by his head coaching blip in Denver. The Belichick Way takes no shortcuts and there is no fast track. He believes in grooming from bottom to top, making all the local stops, with no express service. Patricia started as an offensive assistant and offensive line coach before working with linebackers and safeties and then earning the defensive coordinator title. Conversely, McDaniels began as a defensive assistant. Members of Belichick’s staff, if they stay around, receive unparalleled training.
“I think what’s different about these two guys is they’ve been there for so long,’’ said Simms, who after his NFL playing career spent 18 months working for Belichick in New England. “They understand all facets of the organization and how it should be run, where I would look at guys in the past and go ‘they only knew their side of the ball, they didn’t understand the complete decision-making behind some of the process of what happened, like these guys do.’ These guys get to talk to Bill, they have personal relationships with Bill, I do think it’s a bit of a different animal than some of the guys you’ve seen in the past.’’
The Belichick branches are out there, waiting to set down roots, hoping they grow sturdier than so many previous plantings.