BBS Awards: Bill Belichick wins Lifetime Achievement Award

The Boston Blood Sox Awards (or Bloodies) are awarded for great success and/or pitiful failure in the 2014-15 sports year.

By winning his fourth Super Bowl, Bill Belichick cemented his legacy as the greatest football coach of all-time. Among Boston coaches in all sports, he's second only to Red Auerbach. NFL coaches can only dream of achieving half of what Belichick has achieved.

Four Super Bowl wins as a head coach, 2 more as an assistant. He's been part of 8 Super Bowls spanning 4 decades. Named Coach of the Year 3 times by the AP. His defensive gameplan from Super Bowl 25 is in the Hall of Fame.

He's won 232 games including 22 playoff wins. His 211 regular season wins is 6th all-time, and with 12 more wins he'll pass Paul Brown for 5th.

One of Belichick's biggest strengths is his ability to move on from adversity. "We're on to Cincinnati" became a theme of the 2014 season, but moving on has been a key part of Belichick's career. He was a failure in Cleveland, but was able to learn from the experience and move on. When the Patriots lost Bledsoe in 2001, he and the team moved on. When they lost 31-0 to the Bills in 2003, they moved on. When the SpyGate story erupted, when Brady got hurt in 2008, when Aaron Hernandez murdered people, when the team was 2-2 last year and people were questioning if Tom Brady should be the quarterback, when DeflateGate broke. Belichick moves on.

No team excels in the face of adversity like Belichick's Patriots.

Few coaches have lost Super Bowls as heartbreaking as the two that Belichick lost against the Giants. And yet he still isn't afraid of risking defeat. He still has massive balls. He had the balls to reject the Jets and work for the Patriots (having learned from his Cleveland experience how important it was to work for owners who let you do your job). He had the balls to keep 4 quarterbacks on his roster, one of them was Tom Brady. He had the balls to let Brady try to win Super Bowl 36. He had the balls to let Lawyer Milloy go, to sign Corey Dillon, to bring in Randy Moss, to drop Randy Moss, to trade Logan Mankins, et cetera.

His aggression has sometimes been questioned, and it hasn't always worked out, but that aggression is why he and the Patriots are 4 time champions.

You could write a 200-page thesis paper on leadership by talking about Bill Belichick. So I'll stop myself here.

But Belichick has yet to stop. He's still doing his job.

Patriots now more likely to win another Super Bowl after Goodell provided them with adversity

There's a factory in Foxborough, Mass. that takes the raw material of adversity and somehow turns it into wins. A few months ago the workers there turned an overblown story about under-inflated footballs into a shiny silver trophy. Several years ago they turned an uproar over videotaping signals which were visible to tens of thousands of people, into a nearly perfect season. The year after that, they went 11-5 despite losing their All-Pro quarterback. And a few years before that, a team that lost 31-0 to the Bills went on to win 21 games and 2 Super Bowls in a row.

The team most likely to succeed in adverse situations is the New England Patriots. They've gone through more -gates than a flight attendant. They survived the Aaron Hernandez arrest. They endured the hype around Tim Tebow.

Tom Brady will miss up to the first 4 games of the regular season. Those are against the Steelers, Jaguars, Bills, and Cowboys. Two good teams, another that always plays the Patriots tough, and the Jaguars. Fortunately, only one game is against a divisional opponent, and only one game is against another contending AFC team. Unless Goodell suspends Brady for appealing his suspension (he already suspended him for not submitting his cell phone, so don't dismiss it), Brady should return to play the Colts on an extra-dramatic Sunday Night Football, then the Jets and Dolphins.

Obviously without Tom Brady those first 4 games will be tough. This team might find itself 1-3 or even 0-4 to start the season.

Then again, it's plausible (or shall I say "more probable than not") that the Patriots can manage to go 2-2 in those games. Going 3-1 is within the realm of possibilities. And although it's unlikely, a 4-0 start isn't out of the question.

So the Patriots could start the season 2-2, and then get even better by adding Tom Brady to their active roster. This team started the 2014 season 2-2. We all remember "We're on to Cincinnati." The Pats then won 13 of the next 15 games, and the Super Bowl.

So as far as the impact of this suspension goes, I don't think it's incredibly severe. And considering how the Patriots rally when they perceive the world to be against them, I think they are now more likely to win the Super Bowl then they had been before Goodell threw the book at Brady.

And if the Patriots do win the Super Bowl in a few months... I don't think I'll ever stop laughing.

Photo Credit:
USA Today/Sports Illustrated

DeflateGate of the Union

The Patriots played with deflated footballs on Sunday. Reports are coming out that 11 of the 12 balls on the Pats' sideline were under-deflated, by about 2 pounds of pressure. Sidebar: people really need to know the difference between pounds per square inch, and pounds as a unit of mass/weight.

I don't respect these actions. Nor do I disrespect them. I don't like that the Patriots did this, but I don't dislike them for doing it. Bill Belichick is still my second favorite sports figure of all-time (behind Pedro Martinez). Although as much as I like him, if I were playing poker with him, I'd cut the deck when he dealt.

You know, on more than one occasion I've broken the speed limit. I've been caught doing it a few times too. I paid my fines and saw my insurance premiums go up. When I was 17 I even got my license suspended because I got 2 tickets before turning 18. I also drank alcohol before I turned 21. I've never cheated on a girl, but I have been with girls who were cheating on their boyfriends.

What's that? You don't care? I understand. I don't really care about the Patriots deflating their balls. They cheated, they got caught, they'll have to pay for it. It's similar to the fines I paid for speeding. Or when a player jumps offside, they pay for it with a 5 yard penalty. Or if a player tests positive for amphetamines, they get suspended.

What's the appropriate punishment here? The NFL's rules prescribe a minimum of a $25,000 fine. That's just the minimum punishment. What about draft picks or suspensions?

I think suspending Belichick or Brady would be absurd. And yes, Brady is part of this. You can't just blame Belichick here. I think a hefty fine, and a loss of draft picks would be suitable punishment, and act as a deterrent to other teams. Because other teams do this. Which doesn't justify doing this, and doesn't mean anyone caught doesn't deserve punishment. But the notion that the Patriots have committed a unique crime is preposterous.

Does this tarnish Bill Belichick's legacy, or the Patriots'? In the eyes of people who already see it as tarnished, it does. However, the asterisk crowd was always going to find a way to diminish what Belichick and the Patriots have done the last 15 years.

In my eyes there is no tarnish, at least not to any part of the coach or the team that matters to me. Belichick's adherence to the rules was never a factor in me liking him. He is the best coach of the era and one of the best of all time. He pushes the rules and sometimes breaks them. He does everything it takes to win, which is a respectable philosophy that sometimes results in behavior that isn't respectable.

His job is to win. And the Patriots better win this upcoming Super Bowl. Because nothing is sadder than cheating and still losing.

Antonio Smith Accuses Patriots of Cheating

After the Houston Texans their 10th straight game, defensive end Antonio Smith indirectly accused the Patriots of somehow knowing something that they shouldn't have been able to know:

"You can tell they changed their scheme in the second half. It's miraculous they changed some things on offense that keyed on what we put on this week to stop what they were doing. They did things they never did all year before. It was a specific thing that was important to what we were going to do today, as to how we were going to call the defense. We'd not ever did it before, and they never changed like that before. It just let me know that something wasn't right.

"Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are among the best at their craft because they work so hard at their craft. But you have to be a descendant of Tones-tradamus (sic) to know what we put in this week to be able to change that fast. I got the only crystal ball in existence. I don't know what it is. Either teams are spying on us or something's going on."

That's supposed to be Nostradamus. Before saying all that, Smith was asked for an example of what the Patriots did:

"I can't tell you an example because it's G-15 classified. It's a defensive thing that we might continue to use... I'm trying to say it without giving it away. When you watch film of the team do something a certain way all the time no matter what team they play - it's been 12 games played and they always did it - and then all of a sudden it's changed? It was pretty clever and pretty suspicious."

I believe "G-15 classified" refers to a scene in Rush Hour.

Smith was asked if the Patriots offense knew what the Texans defense was going to do before they did it:

"I'm saying it seemed like it. You can't never be for sure on anything because I ain't over there in their huddle, in their locker room, but it just felt like it."

It's hard to discuss the validity of Smith's accusations without knowing exactly what he is accusing the Patriots of doing. Nevertheless, this lack of information won't stop people from speculating, and some from concluding, so let's join in the uber-hypothetical fun.

Smith seems to accuse the Pats of knowing something before they could have known it. So that would mean the Pats spied on Houston's practices, or somehow got a tip, or hacked into Wade Philips' GMail account, or planted a bug in Houston's locker room.

It's a weird accusation because the Patriots offense played like crap for half of this game. The adjustments seemed to occur in the third quarter. So did the Patriots get their illicit foreknowledge during halftime? If they knew about Houston's tactics before the game, why wait until halftime to adjust? And if they adjusted to Houston at halftime, what's so alarmingly suspicious about that?

The Texans have been a poor second half team all season. They've had a lead at halftime 5 times this year, and lost EVERY time. They blew three halftime leads in November alone, including a 21-3 lead to the Colts.

At the same time, the Patriots have made some big second half comebacks.

Smith's evidence seems flimsy at best. The Patriots adjusted to something Houston was doing, and hadn't done all season. The Patriots seemed to adjust too quickly than they should have been able to. At least too quickly by Antonio Smith's reckoning. What Houston was doing and how New England adjusted remain a mystery to us.

This won't stop rabid Patriot haters from using this to convince themselves that Belichick cheats and that the continued success of the Patriots is a moral affront to football and to America, and must be stopped at all costs. No matter how many asterisks or worn out SpyGate jokes it takes.

This also probably won't stop the Houston Texans from losing games. Smith comes across as paranoid, emotional, and just tired of losing. I can't say I blame him. Losing 10 in a row, 5 of which you led at halftime, it must wear you down. Then you try something new against a good team, it works for 30 minutes, yet you still lose. You're bound to entertain crazy theories and wild ideas.

Still, there's no crying in football.

I Don't Mind What Harbaugh Said

When someone first told me that Baltimore Raven's Head Coach John Harbaugh said something about the Patriots and SpyGate and asterisks, I got pissed. How dare he? That bastard!

Then I looked past the inflammatory headlines, and actually heard what Harbaugh said. And it wasn't that bad. Here's the quote:

"In the end, everything is brought before the light of day, when it’s all said and done. What happens, even the thing in New England, no matter whether those things had any impact on whether they won their championships or not, they got asterisks now. It’s been stained.

"To me, it’s never worth it. You have to figure out ways to use the rules to your advantage, you have to figure out ways to make the most of everything. We have new work rules here as far as what we can do and what we can’t do with our players, and we're going to make the most of it. What we're finding is, man, maybe we can do some things even better than we did before, because these rules make us focus more on some things that we didn’t focus on before. You just have to make them work for you. That’s what success is in the world. You have to find a way to do things better than somebody else. But if you’re cheating, in the end, you’re going to get discredited. It’s not worth it."

To me, as a Patriots fan, the key words he said are "...whether those things had any impact on whether they won their championships or not..." That's a qualifying statement. That tells us that he's not belittling the Patriots' Super Bowl wins, he's not saying they should have asterisks attached to those wins. He's talking about the perception of those championships. How some people view those championships.

And he's right. Many people do not think the Patriots truly deserved to win those titles. I disagree with them, but I can't deny that such people exist.

And these people are not just the Arlen Specters of the world, not just whiny Jets fans. There are people inside the NFL too. And Harbaugh would know better than any of us what the perception of those titles are in the League.

Harbaugh was being asked about the Saints, he mentioned New England as another example of a team that cheated (yes, the Patriots cheated, breaking the rules is cheating. I don't think it affected the outcome of games, but it was a violation of the rules). All he talked about was perception. He didn't talk about how HE saw Belichick and the Patriots. He talked about how Belichick and the Pats are seen by OTHERS.

And he wasn't incorrect.

Goodell Crucifies Saints

The punishments dispensed by the NFL seem harsh. Head Coach Sean Payton has been suspended without pay for the entire 2012 season. Saints' GM Mickey Loomis has been suspended for 8 games. Asisstant Joe Vitt has been suspended for 6 games. Former Saints' Defensive Coordinator (now working for the Rams) Gregg Williams has been suspended indefinitely. The Saints will forfeit their 2nd round picks in 2012 and 2013 (they do not have a 1st round pick this year). They've also been fined $500,000.

That seems intense. And I'm sure some will compare this to the NFL's lack of suspensions after SpyGate.

However, guys like Williams didn't cooperate with the investigation into this. And he's even admitted to attempting to obstruct it.

Furthermore, the Saints violated salary cap rules with these bounties. You can't do that. It's explicitly against the rules. There's no gray area, no need to send memos to remind the coaches. You can't give someone an under the table bonus for an interception. This isn't college football.

Finally, I think these bounties had more impact on games played on the field than tapes of opposing signal-callers that were viewed after the game was played. Call me crazy.

The punishments seem harsh. But do you think any team will allow such a bounty program to exist after today? Do you think any Head Coach will just shrug and move on with his business? This punishment is about deterring teams from doing this in the future. And I think in that respect, it will be very effective.

Big hits are part of the game. They're supposed to send messages. Goodell and the NFL sent a very loud, very clear message today.