There are plenty of reasons Bill Belichick is the last guy you would want held up as the model NFL coach.
He's about as warm and cuddly as a cranky porcupine, and makes the folks at the CIA look like naive blabbermouths. And he dresses as if he plucked his clothes from a pile on the bedroom floor, like a college kid who rolled out of bed five minutes before class.
Still, Belichick is the best the NFL has these days. With three Super Bowl rings already, the New England Patriots are playing the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday for the right to go after another.
By the time he hangs up his ratty sweatshirt, Belichick might very well be mentioned in the same breath as Lombardi, Halas, Landry, Shula and Noll.
"I think the last thing he cares about is what he dresses like on the sidelines, how he presents himself in front of press conferences," Tom Brady said Friday. "He just likes to coach football and he likes to lead us and he likes to spend all his extra time that he might have trying to prepare."
Football coaches are a notoriously maniacal bunch. They spend ridiculous hours at the office and rarely sleep. Their idea of fun is trying to find a new twist to the Cover 2. Or coming up with yet another version of the West Coast offense.
They don't like to share information with anyone but their players and families - and the latter only after they've undergone a background check.
Belichick, though, is in a class of his own.
He double-crossed mentor Bill Parcells, skipping out as The Tuna's hand-picked successor at the New York Jets after all of a day. When his own protege, Eric Mangini, left for the Jets, Belichick stopped speaking to him. Or about him.
He's almost single-handedly turned the injury report into a running joke. He insists on listing Brady as probable each week, even though the quarterback trails only Brett Favre and Peyton Manning in durability. When the Colts visited the Patriots in November, Belichick stuffed the injury report with 21 players, six of whom wound up starting.
He even managed to rile up LaDainian Tomlinson, normally the epitome of California cool. Tomlinson was incensed at seeing the Patriots dance and celebrate on the Chargers' helmet at midfield last weekend.
"They showed no class," LT said, "and maybe that comes from the head coach."
Indeed, Belichick is the guy everybody except New England fans love to hate, football's version of George Steinbrenner.
