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Keeping McNabb in check

If the Eagles have any chance of winning, Donovan McNabb will have to come up big. But in order to do that, he's got to outsmart Bill Belichick, the league's defensive mastermind.

By JOHN ROMANO
Published February 6, 2005

JACKSONVILLE - Today, the IQ soars.

Maybe it ascends to the genius of Bill Walsh, or rises above the deep thoughts of Tom Landry. Perhaps it even exceeds the brilliance of Vince Lombardi.

Yes, if the Patriots win Super Bowl XXXIX today against the Eagles, Bill Belichick is remembered as one of the virile world's most colossal thinkers.

After all, he is the one who got in Peyton Manning's head and ruined the NFL's most incredible passing season. He is the one who confused Ben Roethlisberger and ended the NFL's most impressive rookie season. And he may be the only one who can keep Donovan McNabb from a Super Bowl ring.

It is, essentially, the story of today's game. No player in the New England huddle will be quite so influential as the dark-haired coach on the sideline.

Not that Tom Brady's play isn't going to be critical. Or that Adam Vinatieri's foot won't have a dramatic impact. It's just the Patriots have always seemed better defined as the whole of Belichick's plan rather than the accomplishments of their individual positions.

"They may very well be," Eagles assistant head coach Marty Mornhinweg said, "the smartest defense I've ever seen in this league."

That, of course, is a tribute to the schemes of Belichick. To a coach who has championed flexibility in a rigid league. Who has discovered specialization is less valuable than versatility.

Belichick is more a manipulator than an innovator. He uses similar ideas and notions as others but wraps them in deception.

He has linebackers who drop into coverage or line up over guards. His Cover 2 defense becomes a Cover 4 before a quarterback realizes it. He'll blitz one team into submission and not blitz at all a week later.

"You can see it in the quarterback's eyes," said Patriots linebacker, and former Buccaneer, Don Davis. "Most quarterbacks, when they get under center, look over the defense and make their progressions from left to right.

"That's when we start moving. You see his eyes going back and forth. Now we're in a look he didn't expect. That's when he starts leaning back. The seconds are starting to tick, and then he pulls his hands out from under center. Now, you know you've got him."

Maybe it's not the work of genius, but it is the payoff of, literally, a lifetime of study. Belichick, 52, learned the game at the side of his father, Steve, who was a coach and scout for more than 30 years at the Naval Academy.

On the kitchen wall of the family home in Annapolis, Bill would watch as his father broke down film of Navy's opponents. By 9 or 10, he was sitting in on meetings with the players when scouting reports were given.

At 23, with an economics degree from Wesleyan, Belichick went to work as a personal assistant for Colts coach Ted Marchibroda. He was initially paid $25 a week, but his perks included driving to work with Marchibroda, which meant getting free lessons in game plans and strategies.

He was 27 when he went to work for the Giants in 1979 as special-teams coach. It was there, in 1983, he met Bill Parcells, and a reputation for being a defensive wizard began to form.

Once, he was considered an appendage of Parcells' success. Now, it's beginning to look like it might have been the other way around. They won two Super Bowls together, but Parcells has never won one without his protege. Belichick has a chance to win his third without the mentor.

"Bill Belichick is the Bobby Fischer of football," Jets running back Curtis Martin said recently. "When you give that guy time to plan for you and prepare for you, he's going to dissect you. He's going to take your whole strategy apart."

There is, naturally, no talk of genius without the right players. Belichick wasn't an intellectual wasteland when he went 36-44 as coach of the Browns, and it is not strategy alone that has made him a success in New England.

But he has taken his team to the top of the league without the benefit of the game's biggest stars. Who, among these Patriots, is destined for the Hall of Fame? Probably Brady, but he still has a lot of time ahead of him.

Otherwise, there are no automatic selections. Not like the Cowboys, Steelers or Dolphins teams of the 1970s. The Patriots had one player make the original Pro Bowl roster on offense, and one on defense. There's not an active player on the team with more than three Pro Bowls in his career.

What Belichick has done is find players who can adapt to his system. Linebackers such as Tedy Bruschi, who can line up as a defensive end, and Davis, who can drop back like a safety.

That flexibility allows Belichick to confuse quarterbacks and offensive coordinators into seeing something that isn't really there.

"Every defense uses some type of deception, they just do it better than most," Eagles offensive coordinator Brad Childress said. "They do a great job of disguising what they're doing, whether they're rushing three guys and dropping eight into coverage, or bringing the blitz."

The one way the Eagles can get around this is with McNabb. He is unlike any quarterback New England has played this season.

The Patriots like to dictate the flow of the game by what they do on defense, but McNabb is talented enough to impose his will on the game.

It's basically a question of whether he can figure out Belichick's plan.

"They confuse you, and we can't allow that," Eagles center Hank Fraley said. "If you're unprepared against them, you're going to lose."

This is the day when the Belichick legend can grow. When he can join Walsh, Lombardi and Chuck Noll as the only coaches with at least three NFL championships in the past 40 years.

This is the hour when his genius is put to the test.

And if the Patriots lose?

Well, then he's no brighter than, say, Mike Shanahan.

[Last modified February 6, 2005, 00:23:11]