Belicheck's Situational Awareness Focus

[swankdaddy7]

I for one am stunned that every team doesn't copy Belicheck's focus on this more. The Patriots routinely win close games because they always play smart football (especially at the end of halves). Belicheck puts a lot of practice time emphasis with coaches and players on "what do we do if this happens?" and "what do we do if this situation arises?".

In crunch time, teams with more talent like the Chargers are getting personal fouls called against them while Patriot players are stripping DB's after the late game interception in the playoffs.

The Dolphins have been abysmal at this for close to 10 years and it's been driving me nuts. The collapse of the 11 point lead late against New England with the playoffs on the line in 2002 was one of the worst things I've seen in my life. (And they blew it against the Vikings the week before)

I thought that since Saban had fairly strong ties to Belicheck that he would focus on this issue. I didn't see any signs of it and that blows my mind. It's so clear that the Patriots routinely win games where they are evenly matched in talent because they play smarter and don't get rattled in unusual situations.

I would love to know Cam's thoughts on this issue and why all 32 coaches wouldn't be trying to do exactly what Belicheck does (more or less).

 

[Finfan53]

Its a good reason why guys like to play for him and he is regarded as a great head coach. I hope cam does more of that kinda stuff with this team!

 

[jdang307]

Belicheck makes the best game-time decisions period. And his players too. That weekend when New England beat San Diego last year there was an article on how coach's make mistakes, and they illustrated the mistakes made that weekend (or day, I think there was a total of two games/4 coaches) by everyone except Belicheck.

What is the last gaffe made by him?

 

[Lester]

You also need smart players to be able to do that. It does seem like we are starting to put an emphasis on that.

 

[Roman529]

The Patsies also seem to always get the calls, especially late in games, but the bottom line is their players are disciplined and rarely make the dumb plays to get beat. I think the way you beat them is by getting pressure all over Brady. That is the way the Broncos and Shannihan regularly beat them, and it is how we beat them 21-0 in one of our games last year.

 

[NathanHunt]

Belicheck makes the best game-time decisions period. And his players too. That weekend when New England beat San Diego last year there was an article on how coach's make mistakes, and they illustrated the mistakes made that weekend (or day, I think there was a total of two games/4 coaches) by everyone except Belicheck.

What is the last gaffe made by him?

Not re-signing David Givens and Deion Branch.

It cost them another trip to the Super Bowl. And now, they're depending on Randy Moss (hammy, work out, field distractions and locker room issues), Daunte Stallworth (hammy and overall durability) and Kelley Washington (who's yet to prove anything) to carry them back to the big game.

I will say this now.... when you depend on questionable character and injury prone players in critical situations, you get left hung out to dry.

The Patriots are so worried about the bottom line, they mistreat their players without blinking. Their disrespect might have won them 3 SB's to begin with... but it cost them last year and eventually players will stop coming.

I've never seen an organization go unchecked for so long while mistreating their players as they have.

When BB leaves, NE will pay a heavy price for the years of treating players like garbage and assuming their's always more quality players just begging to get in the door.

Eventually, everyone gets their due.

 

[Roman529]

Not re-signing David Givens and Deion Branch.

It cost them another trip to the Super Bowl. And now, they're depending on Randy Moss (hammy, work out, field distractions and locker room issues), Daunte Stallworth (hammy and overall durability) and Kelley Washington (who's yet to prove anything) to carry them back to the big game.

I will say this now.... when you depend on questionable character and injury prone players in critical situations, you get left hung out to dry.

The Patriots are so worried about the bottom line, they mistreat their players without blinking. Their disrespect might have won them 3 SB's to begin with... but it cost them last year and eventually players will stop coming.

I've never seen an organization go unchecked for so long while mistreating their players as they have.

When BB leaves, NE will pay a heavy price for the years of treating players like garbage and assuming their's always more quality players just begging to get in the door.

Eventually, everyone gets their due.

Well said. The same thing happened to the San Francisco 49ers when they started treating their players cheaply....that's why Montana, Marcus Allen and Jerry Rice had to finish their careers elsewhere.

 

[lotion]

The collapse of the 11 point lead late against New England with the playoffs on the line in 2002 was one of the worst things I've seen in my life. (And they blew it against the Vikings the week before)

I agree this was one of the worst chokes in modern sports history and I personally wanted to slap around Jay, Norv, and Wanny for screwing the pooch. The way RW was running and JT was sacking we would have made some serious noise in the playoffs.
To have the league's leading rusher and sacker and not make it into the playoffs is a tribute to Wanny's ineptitude. He should have been fired in the locker room after that NE game and not let on the team plane.

 

[jnobes7]

wes welker is playing ina softball game wit some patriots this saturday at the brockton rox stadium

 

[rocket4]

Belicheck makes the best game-time decisions period. And his players too. That weekend when New England beat San Diego last year there was an article on how coach's make mistakes, and they illustrated the mistakes made that weekend (or day, I think there was a total of two games/4 coaches) by everyone except Belicheck.

What is the last gaffe made by him?

It's not just the game-time decisions with him. He's prepped for a lot of those. It's helps with his decisiveness and willingness to be bold. Saban was always worried about making the wrong call. You could see it in his face and body language. For example, the flag-gate episode againts Pittsburgh in the opener...Saban was almost twitching while making his decision.

Belichick, in contrast, is a pretty calm guy because he has already studied a lot of the scenarios he encounters. It allows him to make the tough calls and get his guys to believe in them. Supposedly, that time he had his punting unit take the safety to advance the Pats field position and get the offense in a position to score (with the faith that his defense could deliver the stop, of course) was something for which the team had prepped. Furthermore, there was supposedly some math that went into it ahead of time that told them they were more likely to win that way. This could all be hyperbole, but the fact remains...it's got to be helpful when the boss says do something that appears crazy...except that you know it should work just fine.

 

[dolfan2334]

Talk about a gaffe? look what theyre doing to Asante Samuel right now. He helped them win a bunch of games in the past few years and theyre cheating him out of his money, while they dont hesitate to spent bigg bigg money on guys like Adalius Thomas, Welker, Stallworth, Moss. etc.
Classless. (and stupid)

 

[labrie6:00]

All these Patriots fans up here suck too!! They know nothing about football and they forget that they were once the laughing stock of the league for many years! We, as Dolphins fans must realize that all teams go through their ups and downs and we are down right now and hopefully on the rise. But we will never be as absolutely pathetic as those early 90s NE teams. They actually beleive that Brady is better than Dan because of the rings, yet he has never even thrown for 30, never mind 40 TDs in a season. They frustrate me to no end and I cant wait for the day when they are on the downside again and we pound them unmercifully like we used to!!!!!

 

[PATRIOT REIGN]

Talk about a gaffe? look what theyre doing to Asante Samuel right now. He helped them win a bunch of games in the past few years and theyre cheating him out of his money, while they dont hesitate to spent bigg bigg money on guys like Adalius Thomas, Welker, Stallworth, Moss. etc.
Classless. (and stupid)

His money will be aprox 8 million...it's a sad state when someone says he is being cheated...8 million...please cheat me...please....please

 

[late again]

Well said. The same thing happened to the San Francisco 49ers when they started treating their players cheaply....that's why Montana, Marcus Allen and Jerry Rice had to finish their careers elsewhere.

Just an FYI; Marcus Allen finished his career in KC because the Raiders went cheap on him, not the 49ers.

 

[labrie6:00]

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