An Evening with Bill Belichick

brought to New England. He came to the head coach and said to him, "Just tell me what I gotta do." Belichick called it the 'Randy Moss Attitude'. So that's what it is from now on, add it to the Belichick dictionary.

The coach went on to talk about how football has changed in his long time with the game. He talked about the different changes in formations and technology that have taken place during his career. 'It's like that in every other job too," he reminds the crowd, "the landscape is going to change." He says that learning to change and adapt is vital to making it in the work place, as well as on the football field.

Next, coach Belichick spoke about a specific play that had received a lot of coverage the past season. It was a double-reverse pass ran against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Brady laterally passed the ball to Moss, who dropped it (which he was not supposed to do) and picked it up and laterally passed it back to Brady, who found Jabar Gaffney deep into the Steelers' end zone.

"We initially put that play in against the Ravens," coach said, "so we called it 'raven.'" He finished tapping his shoulder to emphasize how clearly things need to be stated in the football world. He says that they had been working on this play in practice, and it had been going pretty well, but they realized that the play would work better if they flipped it over.

So they practiced it until they had it right, and when they ran it in a game, it worked just as they had planned. 'Practice makes perfect,' is the idea here.

This is where the evening got monumental. Coach Belichick began to break down practice and game films with the crowd at Salem State. "I know this is a little unconventional. Not like what President Clinton or President Bush or all those guys did," he claimed.

He started with some punt-coverage formations. A "picket fence" move that he describes is supposed to trap the ball deep in the zone, before it gets to the goal line. He shows this play a few times through in practice films, then he shows it during game situations against the Redskins, the Chargers, and the Jets, where it is clear that practicing the play makes it easier and more likely to happen during a game.

"Practice preparation become game reality."

The next video cues up, showing a bunch of large men jogging slowly around a football practice field. "Tell me what you think happened here," Belichick says, evoking more laughter from the crowd. Then he showed the clips of Light and Wilfork catching the punts at training camp; the catch by Wilfork with the ball in his hand created the loudest cheer, and the biggest celebration from the Patriots on the practice film. This was priceless stuff for a fan of the organization.

Next, he showed the "raven" play. He started breaking it down in the game film, rewinding constantly with his hand-held remote to make sure everyone sees what he is talking about. It went like this.

"Moss drops back, so it's a lateral, and Gaffney lined up right here is gunna go down and fake like he is going to block. See, this adds a lot of draw to the play when Moss drops it. We were planning on having him run around right over here for a little but and then throw it back but it all happened too fast. Nice perfect throw (from Moss to Brady)." Followed by loud applause from the crowd when Gaffney caught Brady's touchdown bomb.

Then Coach Belichick went back to practice, noting that they had been practicing the play from the other side of the field. The Patriots' defense covers the play well the whole time, making Brady find other options than Gaffney's deep out. "Because the defense has seen it too many times," says Belichick.

Finally, coach Belichick runs the Steelers tape again, with the final result of Jabar Gaffney striding into the end zone in front of the trash-talking Anthony Smith, who had "guaranteed" a victory over the Patriots and he wasn't sorry he had. "There's our boy Smitty," joked Coach Belichick, showing that he does take some offense to the trash talk that goes on in the game.

After this, coach Belichick mentioned Super Bowl XXXVI

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