Is there life after Belichick?

By Os Davis  |   Friday, August 03, 2007  |  Comments( 6 )

New England Patriots
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In New England Patriots quarters, fans are salivating in anticipation of a glorious run for the title, but ominous clouds are darkening the future's happy horizon more than a bit. No, we're not talking here about the apparently holey secondary the Beaneaters'll be playing with this season, though this too has got to be concern for fans despite the limitations the Patriots have overcome in recent seasons.

The cause for sobriety against the giddy anticipation? Bill Belichick, the mastermind of the navy blue-and-silver, the guy whom most are ready to place among the pantheon of greats. The sad truth is that 2007 marks the final year of Belichick's contract, a bit of paper more important to the Patriots' personnel department than anyone else's - except for maybe/possibly/conceivably Tom Brady's. Quite a few have suggested that the rampant (and out of character) hustling and bustling to acquire personnel in the offseason is indicative of Belichick's swan song, that he'll be giving it exactly one more go with the team.

Millions of football fans (and every single one under the age of, say, 18 or so) can hardly conceive of an NFL without the hoodied one, the single greatest innovator of game planning still stalking the sidelines. Those in Patriotland, by now coolly accustomed to scoffing at expiring contracts (Willie Who? Adam What?), could get one heck of a painful lesson in ephemera come 2008.

On the other hand, one could suggest that there may even come a time when Belichick, too, should go the way of acolytes Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini and Charlie Weis.

"Heresy!" you may shout, but Belichick may in fact have be dangerously close to using up the mortal head coach's supply of luck, new ideas, will to win, cutting-edge philosophy or whatever mystical combination makes for a Super Bowl champion brain trust. Like it or not, history shows that the overwhelmingly majority of championship-winning NFL head coaches have demonstrated a limit to success that often comes simply with age.

Check out the biodata of some relatively recent champions. Jon Gruden nearly brought the Oakland Raiders a Super Bowl title in 2002, then managed to put the Tampa Bay Buccaneers over the top in 2003; this season, just four years later, he's coaching for his job after a 27-37 run. Bill Parcells, a multiple-time conference champion coach, coached seven years after getting the Patriots into the final game and experienced a good five mediocre seasons. Mike Shanahan's enviable record with the Denver Broncos belies that fact that his guys haven't played in the Super Bowl since the 1990s. And who remembers Jimmy Johnson, a guy who created the brilliant Dallas Cowboys teams of the previous decade, and his frustration with the Miami Dolphins squad he hadn't built with his own two hands?

The vital stat here, i.e. age: Gruden, youngest coach to win a Super Bowl, was 42; Parcells, 45; Shanahan was 46 when the Broncos took title No. 2; Johnson was an even 50 years old. Belichick will be 55 come Super Bowl XLII.

Want to compare the man's half-life to the all-time greats? Chuck Noll stayed with the Pittsburgh Steelers for 12 years after Super Bowl XIV, managing a 2-4 playoff record thereafter. The Cowboys stuck with Tom Landry for 11 seasons after his last Lombardi and even recorded three consecutive losing years to close out his coaching career. The notable exception to such tendencies is the late Bill Walsh, who managed to pass off a winning team with two more titles left in 'em.

None of this is to suggest that Belichick's departure from the Patriots is cause for celebration; history may in fact be irrelevant to the man, who has managed some utterly unique success against the salary cap, which many of the aforementioned hallowed names didn't have to deal with in present form.

However heady with recent thrills Patriot fans have become, though, a day of reckoning is probably coming in one form or another. As difficult as it is for anyone to imagine life without Belichick, fans may be experiencing this as soon as 2008. Barring a re-signing, the NFL could see an even weirder possibility come to fruition: that of a losing New England squad with football's answer to Phil "Zen Master" Jackson still in charge.

And then, we can heartily wish those Patriots "good luck." Brady or no, they'll need it.

Speculation aplenty all year round at RealFootball365.com
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's...
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