One more Super win all Belichick needs for Hall pass

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The defensive plan Bill Belichick used as a coordinator for the New York Giants to slow down the high-scoring Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV is on permanent display in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, a piece of coaching beauty that's like a Picasso of the profession.

The plan is already in Canton, so is the man who devised it about to follow?

Bill Belichick has already hoisted the Lombardi Trophy twice. (AP)

As Belichick's New England Patriots prepare to take on the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX at Alltel Stadium on Sunday, there has been loads of dynasty talk leading up to the game, as well as writers and broadcasters fawning all over the coach. The Patriots will try to win their third Super Bowl in four years, becoming just the second team in history to do so.

Belichick would become the first coach to accomplish the feat and just the fourth man in history to win three Super Bowls.

The Cowboys were the only other team to win three in four years in the 1990s, but Jimmy Johnson won the first two Super Bowls, left the team, and then Barry Switzer won it in 1995 with Johnson's players.

This is all Belichick, which is why a victory should make him a lock for the Hall of Fame.

Win, and he's in. Lose, and the debate begins.

Counting playoffs, Belichick has a career record of 98-72, but he's 9-1 in the postseason, counting the two Super Bowl victories. That ties him with Vince Lombardi for best postseason record for any coach in history with 10 or more games.

If he beats the Eagles, he will move past the man they named the Super Bowl trophy after.

Amazing.

Belichick downplays any talk comparing him to the coaching greats of yesteryear, which we would come to expect from a coach whose team motto is to never look back and never, ever, focus on individual achievements.

"I don't really have much of a reaction on being compared to some of the other people in this league," he said. "It's flattering, but that's not why I'm doing it, and that's not what I am trying to do.

"I'm just trying to get this team prepared to play our very best game of the year against the Eagles. We know that the Eagles are a great football team and present a tremendous challenge. We know we are going to have to play our best game of the year. That's where our focus is. I can't reflect back to other points in time and really don't think now is the time to do it anyway. There is just too much on my plate."

Vintage Belichick.

Since he won't consider his place in history, we will. And here's a simple sentence to sum it all up:

We are watching a coaching legend in the making.

His critics will say he hasn't even won 100 games yet. They'll say he failed in his first coaching stint with the Browns. They'll also say his winning percentage of 57 percent isn't good enough to warrant the great label.

What those people forget is that Belichick is doing this in a salary-cap era. Players come and players go and he keeps this team winning. It's not like when Chuck Noll won four Super Bowls with essentially the same nucleus.

Coaching now is far more challenging. You have to assimilate players quicker, fit them in and try to bring the concept of team together in a shorter time.

Belichick is a master of all of this.

Nothing seems to bother him. If his starting corners go down, he puts two so-so players in their place and they play just as well. If his star defensive lineman is out, it's no big deal. The others will pick up the slack. He firmly believes that and lives by it.

What's more, he's winning Super Bowls without stars. Noll had 11 Hall of Fame players on his teams, while the Patriots have one (Tom Brady) who appears on his way. Richard Seymour, Corey Dillon and Ty Law have a chance, but who else does?

It's a star-less team, which is why the coach is a star.

Bill Walsh had at least three Hall of Fame players in winning his three Super Bowls.

The best comparison to Belichick might be Joe Gibbs, who won three Super Bowls in Washington with three different quarterbacks. Gibbs had a knack for fitting players into his system and making it work, much the same way Belichick does. So far, he has no Hall of Fame players from his teams, although Darrell Green will be a lock in a few years.

But Gibbs didn't have to deal with free agency and the cap, which makes this run by Belichick the most impressive coaching run ever.

Any of the other great runs, including Paul Brown's legendary time with the Cleveland Browns in the All American Football Conference and his early days in the NFL, came with coaches who kept their teams intact.

Belichick has been forced to adjust, and nobody has done it better. He relies on smart players who can learn his system, his ways and do it quickly. They also have to be players who can handle his relentless pressure to succeed.

"Bill is a great coach, definitely," guard Joe Andruzzi said. "He knows the game in-and-out. He's always going to strive to do his best and that's what he relays on the players. We're going to strive to do our best and work together as a team and a coaching staff."

Belichick idolized Brown. His father, Steve Belichick, was the coach at Hiram College in Northern Ohio when Brown's Cleveland Browns would hold training camp there. He has two copies of Paul Brown's biography -- one chewed up some by a dog -- and much of his coaching style has risen from the legendary Browns coach.

"There probably isn't one thing that we do as the New England Patriots, other than maybe a technological improvement, that he didn't do 40 years ago, in terms of preparation, fundamentals, the basic strategy of the game (and) how to coach the team," Belichick said earlier this year.

Brown, former Dolphins coach Don Shula, Noll, Walsh and Gibbs are generally considered the best coaches in league history. A victory Sunday would put Belichick into that same class.

All of those men are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. There are 12 other coaches -- not counting player-coaches -- who are in the Hall. Those 17 men averaged 170 victories, 100 losses and seven ties in their careers, not counting Gibbs' total from this year in his return to the Redskins.

That's a winning percentage of 61 percent, which is slightly ahead of where Belichick is now. But three Super Bowl victories will offset that. Plus, we think he has a lot of coaching left in him.

If the Patriots lose Sunday, Belichick's Hall status would still be up for debate, at this time. A few more years and another Super Bowl season would likely change that. If he can win 11 or 12 games the next couple of years, that winning percentage will soar and two Super Bowls victories might be enough to get him in.

Considering former San Francisco 49ers coach George Seifert can't get a Hall sniff with his two Super Bowl wins and a winning percentage of 65 percent, Belichick just might need to win that third Super Bowl to get his bust.

John Madden won 71 percent of his games and won a Super Bowl and he isn't in the Hall. Tom Flores won 54 percent of his games and two Super Bowls, and he isn't in. Belichick, though, built this team from scratch, which the voters will take into account.

The feeling here is that that bust maker should have that mold ready to go. The guy is an amazing coach, someone we will talk about years from now with the same reverence he talks about Paul Brown.

Belichick will eventually join his defensive game plan in Canton, right there with many of the men he once adored.