Bill Belichick has been coaching the New England Patriots for a long time. He has been there so long, it's easy to think that he has always been there. But of course, the Patriots are not even his first head coaching job. He spent five years coaching the Cleveland Browns in the early 1990s. Before that, he was an assistant coach and eventually, defensive coordinator, on Bill Parcells' New York Giants squads.
While coaching with the Giants, Belichick got a chance to work with a player that many consider the greatest defensive player of all time: Lawrence Taylor. Belichick was either the Giants' linebackers coach or defensive coordinator for Taylor's first 10 NFL seasons, a time during which Taylor made 10 Pro Bowls and eight appearances on the All-Pro first team, while also winning four Defensive Player of the Year awards, an MVP and two Super Bowls.
So when Belichick of all people agrees to compare a defensive player of modern vintage to Taylor, you know it's the highest of possible compliments. This week, he deigned to give that Taylor-like label to the only other player to win three DPOY awards: Texans star J.J. Watt. The comparison was made not in terms of their playing style, mind you, but in intangibles.
"Motor, effort, strength, quickness, instincts [and] the ability to make game-changing plays at critical times in the game," Belichick said, per the Houston Chronicle. "Knowing when the big play -- critical third-down or fourth-quarter play or red-area play -- knowing those critical plays in the game. As good as Taylor would play all game, that was the time when he would play at his best."
Belichick is known to be very close to the vest with his praise of opposing players, reserving compliments only for long-term legends of the game like Larry Fitzgerald, Jason Taylor, Jason Witten and Ed Reed. Watt is obviously already one of the game's best, but the fact that he has made it to Belichick's football crush list after only six NFL seasons is impressive in its own right.
