homegame

"His Kind of Player"

The news is a little stale now, but it can't bear enough repeating that it was the Oakland Raiders who didn't want to trade Randy Moss to the Patriots, not the other way around. The Pats didn't say "no way." They wanted to haggle over price.

This bit of information soon will be smothered under a ton of written and spoken nonsense to the effect Bill Belichick wouldn't make a deal for Moss because the idiosyncratic wideout is not "his kind of player." This is more proof American sportswriting has embraced the Liberty Valance School of Jourmalism. When fact conflicts with legend, legend becomes official history.

Moss is self-centered, mercurial, and has been known to take off the occasional play, game, or month. No coach likes those qualities in a player. Moss is also a tremendous talent. That attribute trumps all his negatives. Belichick's kind of player is the same as every other coach's. He prefers good ones.

The Pats don't win because Belichick has assembled a selfless gang of role players. All successful NFL teams describe themselves that way, even when it's blatant nonsense. Yours truly heard Deion Sanders say it about the '95 Cowboys. Belichick's gift is for finding players mistakenly rated as role players, then finding them ways to be much, more more. Case in point, Mike Vrabel. The Pats' linebacker is the hero of my favorite Belichickian statistic. In New England's three Super Bowl victories, linebacker Vrabel's caught two touchdown passes. That's the same number as future Hall of Fame wideout Michael Irvin had in the Cowboys' three Super Bowl wins in the '90s. Current Hall of Fame wideout Paul Warfield played in three Super Bowls for the Dolphins and a pre-merger NFL title game for the Browns. He didn't catch a scoring pass in any of 'em.

All coaches balance a players' ability versus any negative personality traits he brings to the complex entity of a football team. The kernel of truth in the "Belichick's kind of player" legend is his personal scale puts more emphasis on the latter than many of his peers. That's an understandable sentiment from a man whose most celebrated stint as an assistant coach involved co-ordinating a Giants' defense whose best player was Lawrence Taylor. Not only was Taylor undisciplined and dissolute, he was head coach Bill Parcells' teacher's pet. This so offended Belichick's professional soul that when reminiscing about those Giants' teams, the Pats coach still has trouble saying LT's name.

But I will guarantee anyone any sum they care to name that if a football Mr. Applegate appeared before Belichick this evening and offered to swap an in-his-prime Taylor for Vrabel straight up, role player Mike would be wearing a crimson uniform for the ultimate warm weather franchise before the brimstone scent could fade from the coach's office.

Belichick is a BETTER coach than most any ever. That's not the same as being completely different from the rest. In this matter, Belichick is the same as any coach who's ever drawn a paycheck. It's a tough job as is, so they'd all prefer not to have a player who's a pain in the ass.

If that player's good enough, however, well, there's always Preparation H.

posted by Michael Gee @ 11:51 AM