Some call it the Belichick system, and in a way that's kind of true, BUT.....It's really the AUERBACH system and Belichick follows it to the "TEE." You might say Red's system is for basketball and Bill's is for football......Let me simplify what I'm talking about with a direct quote from the greatest sports mind in ANY sports.......AUERBACH says, 'You can't have a winning team unless you first build a TEAM." That includes cultivating team players who are leaders......Red had Bob Cousy, Easy Ed McCauley, Bill Sharman, Bill Russell and, "the policeman" Bob Brannum......When Brannum retired Red immediately went out and drafted Jim Loscutoff to take over that roll.......From then on the titles just kept coming and "Celtic Pride," AND "The Celtic Mystique" was born......Case closed......
Now.....Bill Parcells came along with the SAME philosophy......Build a team of leaders.....It's not difficult to see, since Belichick worked under Parcells for years, that Belichick picked up the same, tried and true formula for building championship teams......
Of course Belichick had a load of luck when he came across TOM BRADY, who became the ultimate team leader.....AND, it just gets better with him.....People forget that most all of these players were in grade school when Brady was winning Super Bowls. It's like ME playing with TED WILLIAMS..... If you look closely you'll notice several TEAM LEADERS that Belichick drafted, then groomed, for just that purpose. Mathew Slater's name comes to mind just to name ONE.....You know the rest.....
You see them every Sunday, (Monday night or Thursday......
NOW.....the crux of my story.....After watching the first three games of horrible football from the Patriots, everybody was betting that Belichick, and or Brady, and or Gronkowski were getting ready to quit the team.....The biggest problem, besides the media's constant harping on supposed bad blood between any combination of them, including Bob Kraft..was, well ........NOW is the time to tell you about AUERBACH'S simple rules to building a championship team that Belichick follows.......
In no particular order-----NO bad-mouthing the team, coaches or players in the media.....ALSO, NO negotiating (OR renegotiating) contracts in the media-----ALSO, No holdouts or even threatened holdouts.....You do that and you GET TRADED......Ask Cedrick Maxwell or Paul Westphal.....They complained in the media and Red traded them.....Incidentally, Red won titles both times.......ALSO---ask Richard Seymour, Ty Law, Lawyer Malloy, and the other FORMER Patriots.....
NOW-----after seeing the error of his ways, a TEAM LEADER emerged that helped turn everything around.....ROB GRONKOWSKI---That's right.....GRONK stepped forward and proclaimed that he was dead wrong with all of his pre-season, and early season antics of complaining about Belichick's "THINGS" that irked him.....lastly complaining that the teams lousy pass receivers were causing HIM to be double and triple covered making it too difficult to get open.....THAT is why Bill was trying to trade him....."TEAM HARMONY." was being disrupted......AUERBACH'S biggest rule.....
THIS is where Gronk stepped forward and publicly APOLOGIZED to everybody for his mouthing off and taking ALL THE BLAME for his bad performances.....He promised to work harder and harder to get things back to where they (he) used to be......AND, he has........
BUT WAIT, said a couple of my critics......Gronk already was a team leader......NOT SO, I responded......he was a team CLOWN, a FUN guy.....an incredibly talented player but still not a LEADER.....NOW, the Patriots are a COMPLETE TEAM and have a NEW TEAM LEADER to boot.....
I hope all you old timers, that lived through what I said about Auerbach's philosophy influencing Belichick's way of building championship teams, will pass this on to the youngsters.....
HEART-----The Patriots have HEART.....that's what brings them BACK when ever the going gets tough. NOW, if only they can fix that pass defense.....Stay tuned......BOB COUSY'S coming up soon.....