Belichick just can't talk a good game

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FOXBORO, Mass. -- Here's the latest example of why Bill Belichick may be the least-quotable Wesleyan graduate in history. Question (asked at Wednesday morning's news conference): For a team to win back-to-back conference titles, what would you say are the top three or four things they need to accomplish? Answer: Play better than the other team, whoever that is. That's it? Thirty-four years in the National Football League - 14 of them as a head coach; five Super Bowl championship rings - three as a head coach; five straight division titles with the New England Patriots - six in the last seven years, and that's the best answer he's got? Ask Big Bill - that would be Parcells - that question and you'd get something. Insight. Humor. Sarcasm. Bombast. Something quotable. Ron Erhardt would have had a better answer, although not, unfortunately, a better team. Ron Meyer always had something to say. Pete Carroll would have been pumped and jacked to reply. Raymond Berry would have pondered the question and then responded with a pigskin parable. Not Belichick. The guy is a brilliant coach. There's no arguing that. His record speaks much more eloquently than he does. He's also a very smart man. While football clearly is his raison d'etre, he's also well aware not only of what language raison d'etre is, but also what it means. He majored in economics at Wesleyan, one of America's best liberal-arts colleges, and was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters from his alma mater (yeah, he knows that's Latin) in 2005. But sometimes - in fact, most times - you get the feeling he'd sooner discuss Spygate with Matt Walsh than meet with the media. Parcells always seemed to enjoy his give-and-take with the media, even when he was in a cantankerous mood. Come to think of it, particularly when he was in a cantankerous mood. "We speak with one voice, and it's mine," he often said, voicing his team's philosophy on dealing with the media. That said, if a fledgling writer spent 15 minutes with Parcells and couldn't write a story, his future in the business was dim. Belichick stands at the podium for his news conferences with an expression similar to that of a kid looking at a plateful of lima beans and brussels sprouts. This year, he has replaced his customary face-to-face news conference on Thursdays with a conference call on Tuesdays. Wednesday, Belichick finally did, if not exactly warm up to, then at least thaw enough to give somewhat more expansive, if not truly enlightening, answers. "Last year is last year," he said. "We are a different team, and so is everyone else in the league. I think everyone is trying to find what their comfort level is. You try to get to a point where you really see what you have, and when teams start game-planning you, and throwing their butcher's knives at you, you figure out which you can handle and which you can't." There isn't much, given the savvy of Belichick and his coaching staff, combined with the talented players he has on both sides of the ball, the Patriots can't handle. Certainly the Chiefs, with 15 rookies on the roster and a quarterback (Brodie Croyle) with six career starts, would seem to be a team the Patriots - winners of 19 consecutive regular-season games - can handle in the season-opener Sunday at Gillette Stadium. "Since 2001," someone said to Belichick, "you've had a remarkably consistent run of postseason appearances. In terms of preparation, can you expound on that?" "Good players, making good plays," he said, not exactly expounding. "In the end, you win because players make plays on the field. We've had a lot of good players around here." That's due to the acumen of Scott Pioli and his staff of personnel wizards, complemented by input from Belichick and his staff. It also helps that quarterback Tom Brady never has missed a start since taking over for Drew Bledsoe early in 2001. "It's always good to have all of your players," Belichick said. "Quarterback is an important one, but so is everyone else." So are we to believe that Matt Cassel filling in for Brady is the same as, say, Billy Yates filling in for Stephen Neal at right guard? "You never know where or when injuries are going to happen," said Belichick, "so you have to have the depth to be able to cover all the different scenarios that can come up. That is what you try to prepare for." Thanks to Belichick and his staff, the Patriots are always well prepared. "A coach's job," he said, "is to give the players a chance. There's nothing worse than watching the film and feeling like the players did what we asked them to do, but we really just didn't have a chance on the play. "You want to give the players a chance to be in a position where they can match up evenly with your opponent. Maybe, in some cases, they can gain an advantage. In the end, you try to stay out of those situations where you don't have a chance. That's the coach's job to prevent that from happening." It's a job Belichick does as well as anyone in the business. If he's not all that quotable, or personable, well, those Lombardi trophies speak volumes. E-mail Jim Donaldson at jdonalds(at)projo.com(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)