In-Vince-a-Bill
Standard-Times editor Ken Hartnett covered the Green Bay Packers during the Vince Lombardi years. Thirty years later, he compares the great Lombardi to the Patriots' resident genius, Bill Belichick
Every Monday morning following a Packer game my job was to sit in front of a big polished desk and interview Vince Lombardi.
Usually, my rival from UPI was in the room with me but on occasion I was the lone reporter, the Associated Press' man responsible for sharing with Packerland the great man's insights into the latest victory.
On those special days, it was me against Vince, mano a mano.
I never had a prayer. Nobody beat Lombardi, even in an interview.
In case you've forgotten, Lombardi's teams almost always won, be the weather fair or foul, be they healthy or decimated by injury, be they up against a weak rival or a team led by the mighty Jim Brown.
"There are no supermen," Lombardi would say, speaking in sentences that could be carved in stone, not offered as starting points in a conversation.
He was a man who built his team on a deeply felt and tirelessly articulated personal philosophy; he also built it on the power of his will.
He was the most overwhelming personality I ever encountered.
He died more than 30 years ago. He still from time to time stalks my dreams.
I met Bill Belichick for the first time Thursday in the Patriots' auditorium at CMGI. I was not alone. Scores of sportswriters and TV types and radio personalities and former players were in the room along with a crew from NFL Films.
Belichick attracted the mini-media horde by offering a course in defensive football #101, featuring a demonstration by the coach himself of the art of breaking down game film.
It was an opportunity to watch another coach in action and to do what I invariably do whenever I cross the path of an NFL coach: compare him to Lombardi.
For almost two hours, Belichick commanded his audience, explaining with patience and a modesty that bordered on humility the intricate details of defending against the 1,001 circumstances and situations that can bring on defeat.
He got a round of applause when it was over. Imagine that. The media clapping for Bill Belichick. By the way, he deserved the applause. He was generous beyond a sportswriter's dreams.
Lombardi was often sullen on Mondays, especially after a lopsided victory. When he was in one of those dark moods, he volunteered little or no information or analysis. The building blocks needed for a story had to be pried from him.
But on occasion, he surprised me with his openness.
The Packers had a rookie kick returner, a shy, unpolished kid named Travis Williams who for a brief spell was unstoppable.
He was becoming a media moment.
After one of Williams' big games, Lombardi began to talk about why the kid was doing so well.
He reverted to his former role as a classroom teacher, and as if he were explaining the obvious to a backward child, he drew up the special team intricacy known then and now as "the wedge." All Williams had to do was run as fast as he could in a straight line. and keep going. The blockers would do the rest.
It was the only time in three seasons I can remember Lombardi stopping to explain.
I realize now he wasn't doing it for me; he was doing it for Travis Williams.
Flash back to last January. It's the Patriots vs. the Steelers for the American Football Conference title and the ball is on the ground after the Patriots blocked a field goal attempt that would have put Pittsburgh back in the game.
Troy Brown is the Patriot nearest the ball. He can dive on the ball and hold it, assuring Patriot possession. He can scoop it up and look for the big return.
What's the right decision for Brown to make when there's no time for reflection?
That's one of the questions Belichick turned on the media Thursday.
He finally answered it himself.
The right choice was to do what Brown did: scoop up the ball and run. It was Pittsburgh's 4th down, so the Patriots would get possession anyway. Once Brown had the ball, Pittsburgh's field goal unit with its massive but lead-footed blockers would have to bring him down.
They never got close.
At least five other Patriots near the ball would have made the same decision Brown made, Belichick made clear.
It was a situation they had been trained to anticipate. They were prepared.
Lombardi was at his gentlest the day after a Packer defeat. That puzzled me at the time. Now, I suspect he was putting the defeat behind him and getting prepared emotionally for the next challenge on the schedule.
He didn't have to beat anybody up after the Packers lost; his players would do that to themselves.
In victory, Lombardi saw all the imperfections and they ate at him. He never let winning excuse bad play. A coach like Pete Carroll would have been an abomination in his eyes.
I came away from Thursday's session convinced Bill Belichick had figured out how to win, just the way another long-time assistant named Vince Lombardi had figured it out at roughly the same age -- years after the head coaching parade seemed to have passed him by.
He didn't say anything directly about that, anymore than Lombardi ever said anything directly about the basis for his success. Everything had to be inferred from the values he emphasized.
(The only coach I can remember talking directly about his success was Hank Stram of the Chiefs and the way he bragged about the "moving pocket" as the wave of the future after he defeated the Vikings in Super Bowl IV. Stram went downhill steadily after that.)
For three seasons, I tried every questioning technique I knew to get Lombardi to talk about why his teams invariably succeeded, even when matched against teams with far more talent.
Lombardi insisted in those days that San Francisco had the best talent in the league; Dallas was not far behind.
If that's the case, then why couldn't those teams beat Green Bay? Why did the Packers invariably gain the edge?
Unfair questions, he would say, as if I were trying to get him to acknowledge the genius of his coaching.
No doubt he thought I was a wise guy from Jersey and marked me down as a threat to the team, a subversive element in the locker room. All I wanted to know was what made him tick.
The evidence is mounting that Belichick knows that talent is just part of the winning formula, maybe the least important part of it.
What matters most to him is being able to prepare a team to play successfully.
That involves the ability to devise a strategy for success week after week; it also involves the ability to show players their part in carrying out that strategy.
That means players who are big enough and strong enough and fast enough to do the tackling, the blocking, the running that needs to get done, and almost every team has sufficient numbers of roughly equal in athletic ability.
And virtually every team has smart coaches. No team has a monopoly on brains and imagination.
The edge has to be found elsewhere.
A great defensive or offensive scheme is worthless without players smart enough and disciplined enough to carry out the strategy in the face of ever changing circumstances on the field.
Success presupposes a blend of experienced players who know what has to be done, and newcomers bright and open to learning the coach's path to winning.
If a strategic-minded coach has enough players with the physical, mental and spiritual stamina to execute his vision, that coach will win.
It's not the talent; it's the character, stupid.
Lombardi taught me that without ever saying so; Belichick confirms it with virtually ever move he makes.
I listened hard to what Belichick was saying Thursday about the importance of preparation.
Again and again, in reviewing tapes, he came back to the notion of knowing when his team is prepared to play.
Belichick knows the Patriots are 100 percent ready when his troops to a man recognize the right response in every practice situation.
One hundred percent is perfection, and as the Jesuits taught Lombardi, the pursuit of perfection is the path to salvation. It's also the road to the Super Bowl.
Lombardi put his heart and soul into preparation.
Repetition is the mother of studies, the Jesuits also said, and Lombardi put that principle into action, forcing players to repeat the same plays, the same drills, over and over again until they were running them in their sleep.
Lombardi goaded them on with his tempestuous temper, his barbed tongue, his cold, infuriating indifference to the feelings of others.
Henry Jordan's oft-repeated line about Lombardi was perfectly true: "He treats us all the same -- like dogs."
"A ruthless brute" was the way sportswriter Jimmy Cannon once described Lombardi. That was one aspect of his personality.
Lombardi once had limping receiver Bob Long running up and down the Lambeau Field steps because he refused to accept the notion that Long had a seriously injured knee.
Ultimately, when it was too late, Long's knee would be operated on. This highly promising young receiver never was the same. The damage was done.
That was one side of a brilliant, charismatic man who truly believed in the love that holds a football team together, a love built on the sacrifice of ego and individuality to a loftier common purpose. Lombardi didn't build his teams; he fused them.
In the process, he convinced his players that they would win, if only they paid the price in total commitment to the team.
And win they did.
Week after week, Lombardi demonstrated that his method worked. He had to; otherwise all that sacrifice would be hollow and he'd have a revolt on his hands.
He never stopped proving it.
Again and again during the almost 2 hours Belichick devoted to this unprecedented classroom, he indirectly made the point that the difference between victory and defeat lies in the intelligence of execution.
He never said that. He probably never mentioned victory or defeat, success or failure.
But in discussing individual players, again and again, he got back to one basic theme, the individual player knowing what to do and making the right decisions instantly in ever changing situations, decisions that hinged on their understanding of their distinctive role in a collective effort.
Lombardi had it a lot easier than Belichick. He imposed his will on 40 players contractually bound to Green Bay for as long as Green Bay wanted them to play.
Free agency didn't exist; there was no players' union. It was Lombardi's way or the highway and he never compromised, never.
But he did teach, day in and day out.
He taught with his endless string of slogans, including the one he denied responsibility for but which was pure Lombardi: "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing."
"Fatigue makes cowards of us all" was my favorite.
I can't count the number of times those words come to me in life situations.
The experts say Belichick's Super Bowl game plan was among the most brilliant ever devised for a championship game. It was vintage Lombardi.
The Green Bay coach would invariably have his players attack the opposing team's strength. Weaknesses surface without much prodding. But if you swarm the strong point, you can minimize if not neutralize the enemy advantage. (Browns great Jimmy Brown never hurt the Packers. Look it up.)
Then the game swings on your strength vs. their strength minus.
Consider the long list of stars who have been bedeviled by Belichick: Kelly, Bledsoe, Manning, Faulk, Bettis, Stewart. Recall the Super Bowl and the constant hammering inflicted on the Rams' corps of lightning quick receivers, the harassment that forced the Rams' quarterback into fatal moments of imprecision.
Pure Belichick; pure Lombardi.
Unlike Lombardi, Belichick coaches in an era of free agency with ever shifting rosters. His players routinely are millionaires protected by a strong union.
He comes over as a quiet, unassuming man. We can't imagine him bellowing at or bullying a player, although we are told he did that on occasion in the past. He served for years under Bill Parcells; bullying can rub off. Maybe it did for a time.
But he seems far removed from Parcells these days.
He is a man of numbers, whether devising a defense or trying to calculate the most efficient way to break down a practice session.
He has so much to teach and only so much time to teach it; he must recreate "a team" for a new season while teaching the ever more complicated arithmetic of cover schemes and containment. There are so many gaps in the line, there are so many receivers to cover. Decisions must be made instantly by players and coaches all doing the numbers.
Belichick must have laughed when Terry Glenn suggested last year that somebody "do the math."
He's always doing the math; it's key to watching the tape.
Lombardi in another football age imposed his iron will on 40 men and made them the expression of his personality.
Belichick is trying to express his idea of winning football in a totally different way.
He's building a team on logic and the powers of persuasion. He's talking sense to men whose playing time will hinge to a great degree on how well they listen.
Slowly but surely, he is layering the New England roster with men who, while more than meeting the physical requirements for success, all have an extra dimension.
They are not only solid football players in the Parcells' sense ("Real football players play football in football season."), they are all intelligent and self-disciplined.
If they don't know from the start what Belichick is teaching, they'll grasp it in time for the opening game.
And what Belichick is teaching is what Lombardi taught. The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender. The more you practice, the better prepared you will be. The higher the number of players willing to pay the price, the more certain the chances of victory.
I didn't get a chance to interview Belichick Thursday. I did get to ask him two questions.
The second was a Hail Mary question. Who knows? Maybe he'd reach for it. He was talking about rapid deployment of defensive forces, so, logically, I brought up Mike Martz' comment that he should have hit Belichick with a no huddle in the very first quarter. Belichick easily brushed me off, reminding me that the Super Bowl news conference was held months ago.
But he liked the first question, before that, a thinker about the changing physical attributes of safeties and linebackers.
He said that was a real good question.
In all those Monday mornings long ago, Lombardi didn't tell me that even once.
One season I wrote a Lombardi profile for the AP. The coach's PR man sent me a tear sheet on which he wrote, the coach said he liked the piece.
That was the closest thing to a compliment Lombardi ever gave me.
This story appeared on Page E1 of The Standard-Times on July 21, 2002.
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