By Jarrett Bell
USA TODAY
INDIANAPOLIS -- Tom Brady has been connected to Bill Belichick for so long he figures he's heard some of his coach's same ol' punch lines 20 times.
Yet even now, as Belichick and Brady lead the New England Patriots into their Sunday showdown against the New York Giants as the first coach-quarterback duo to reach five Super Bowls, the quarterback isn't always sure when Belichick will break up the room with a one-liner.
"He'll tell his jokes," Brady says, hustling through the college conference center where the team is housed for Super Bowl XLVI. "The key thing is that you've got to get him in a good mood."
You'd expect that winning might set the tone.
"Even with that," Brady says, "you never know."
Perhaps that unpredictability -- or adaptation -- casts some light on why a franchise that has claimed three Super Bowl trophies and nine division titles behind its dynamic duo is positioned again to sit atop the NFL universe.
Brady, the 12th-year veteran whose storybook NFL career began as a sixth-round draft pick, can win his fourth Super Bowl title. It would match the record for most by a quarterback, a mark shared by his boyhood idol, the San Francisco 49ers' Joe Montana, and the Pittsburgh Steelers' Terry Bradshaw.
Belichick, also in the 12th year on the job with the Patriots, can tie former Steelers coach Chuck Noll's Super Bowl-record haul of four victories as a head coach.
Belichick and Brady and already have established the NFL record for most regular-season victories by a coach-quarterback duo with a 124-35 (.780) mark.
For all the stability at the foundation of the success, flowing from team owner Robert Kraft and through Brady -- who contends Belichick coaches him in the same manner as he did when he was a rookie -- there's a freshness fueling the winning edge.
Says NFL Network analyst Michael Lombardi, "When Bill says each year is a new year, he means it."
Consider all that has changed during the Patriots' run of excellence:
- Just three players (Brady, tackle Matt Light and running back Kevin Faulk) remain from the franchise's first Super Bowl triumph, following the 2001 season. Only seven players are left from the 2007 squad that was the franchise's last to reach the Super Bowl and lost to the Giants, spoiling its bid for a perfect season.
- Of the 15 assistant coaches with this season's team, only offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia, running backs coach Ivan Fears and defensive line coach Pepper Johnson were on the 2001 staff. Romeo Crennel and Dean Pees have come and gone as defensive coordinators; Charlie Weis and Josh McDaniels have had stints running the offense.
McDaniels rejoined the staff in December, and is likely to direct the offense again after coordinator Bill O'Brien leaves for Penn State, which has hired him as its new head coach.
- The offensive styles of the Super Bowl teams have had diverse features. The 2001 team survived with a conservative setup tailored for the inexperienced version of Brady, who in his second pro season replaced an injured Drew Bledsoe and engineered one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history against the St. Louis Rams. The 2004 team was led by a 1,600-yard rusher, Corey Dillon. The 2007 outfit rode with long passes, many to Randy Moss, while Brady threw an NFL-record 50 touchdown passes.
This season, Brady has helped cover for a young, 31st-ranked defense with a scheme that leans heavily on tight ends Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski.
"That's what makes Bill so good," says Lombardi, who was the Cleveland Browns' personnel director during the 1990s, when Belichick had his first head coaching stint with that club. "He never looks at it like, 'We've got to do it this way.' He knows how to adapt."
Like Stabler and Madden
Even so, the Patriots' success this season -- they carry a 10-game winning streak dating from a 24-20 loss to the Giants on Nov. 6 -- illuminates how essential it is in the NFL to complement superb coaching with a franchise quarterback.
While many pieces around them have been shuffled amid the modern NFL's landscape of parity and free agency, Belichick and Brady are constants who have earned their places among the greatest ever.
"It reminds you of the old days, of combinations like (Ken) Stabler and (John) Madden," says Tony Dungy, the former Super Bowl-winning coach of the Indianapolis Colts. Madden and Stabler were coach and quarterback for Oakland Raiders squads that won six of seven AFC West titles, beginning in 1970.
"You just don't see that anymore," Dungy adds. "You can't overestimate how hard that is to do. They've been great to have the creativity to keep pressing forward, to keep doing more things, but with that stability, too."
Kraft, who purchased the franchise in 1994, says stability always was part of his blueprint for building a winner. He recalled that his split in 1997 with Bill Parcells was caused, in part, because the coach said he would stay on a year-to-year basis.
"I can only work with people who commit and think long term," Kraft says. "If you're going to hire players that I'm going to commit dollars to, I want you accountable."
Accountability hardly has been an issue. Belichick has final authority over football operations, while Kraft runs the business side.
"No matter what business I'm in, I always try to hire people who are smarter than I am, in the things that I know the least about," Kraft says. "When you hire good people, they get good people."
People like Brady, a draft longshot from the University of Michigan, after six other quarterbacks had been selected.
Brady and Belichick are " both smart, independent people, but they put winning first," Kraft says. "Whatever puts the team in the best position to win, that's our priority."
In some regards, Belichick and Brady seem like an odd mix.
Belichick, 59, typically displays a dour public demeanor. During news conferences, he doesn't say things that might anger opponents or express opinions that are unrelated to football.
The son of a coach, Belichick dresses the part of a football lifer in work settings, often wearing his signature hooded sweatshirt with cut-off sleeves.
Brady, 34, has a polished, glamorous image. He's posed for the cover of GQ, has had a bevy of commercial endorsements and is married to supermodel Gisele Bundchen. In public appearances, he is usually warm and engaging.
Despite such outward differences, Belichick and Brady share an obsessive work ethic that is at the heart of their co-existence and success.
In the football world, this can be revealed each week in the preparation process that includes game-planning and film study.
"You get a consistent effort from Tom on that every single week," Belichick says. "It's not up and down. I meet with Tom at the beginning of the week, and he always has seen all of the film, as much or more than I have going back to the previous games."
QB all-in for coach who gives no deference
Brady, who will match John Elway's Super Bowl record with his fifth start at quarterback, has indicated that he will be plenty motivated on Sunday -- but not merely because of the championship stakes or chance to avenge the Super Bowl loss to New York.
He was unhappy with his performance in the recent AFC title game victory against the Baltimore Ravens, when he threw two interceptions and had a meager 57.5 passer rating.
During the postgame celebration before fans, he said, "I sucked pretty bad, but our defense saved us. We're going to go out and try to kick some butt in a couple of weeks."
Belichick downplayed the disappointment that Brady expressed as a sign of his competitive urge. "At the end of every game," Belichick says, "we can always look back and say, 'I wish I could have done this better. I wish I would have done that better.'"
Despite Brady's accomplishments -- his 5,235 passing yards during this past regular season are the second-most in NFL history, while his 300 career TD passes rank fifth all-time -- it is striking that Belichick still describes him as "coachable."
Apparently, this also can translate into instances in which the star quarterback is grilled by the coach in a manner that would not be unusual for a third-string rookie.
"He's very consistent as a coach," says Brady. "He coaches me the same way that he coached me the day that I got here. On our team, it's interesting, there really is no separate treatment for different players. The rookies are expected to perform and act the same as the veteran guys. He's very tough. He says to us from time to time he understands that it's a demanding place to play and that it's really not meant for everybody."
Heath Evans, who played fullback for the Patriots from 2005 to 2008, remembers sitting in a meeting room shortly after joining the team and being stunned to hear Belichick call out Brady before the entire squad during a film session.
This was the opposite of what Evans says he experienced with his previous team, the Seattle Seahawks, when then-coach Mike Holmgren would not criticize his star players.
"Belichick would say something like, 'C'mon, Brady, what were you thinking here?'" Evans recalls. "I'm thinking, 'Really? Tom Brady? First-ballot Hall of Famer? Oh, my God.'
"That's where that coaching and accountability is crucial. That 53rd man on the roster has to know he's in the same boat as Tom Brady. It creates a winning atmosphere, the freedom to be a team. But when your star players are untouchables and there's no accountability, young players lose respect."
Offensive lineman Brian Waters, 34, isn't young by NFL standards. But in his first season with the Patriots after playing the first 11 years of his career with the Kansas City Chiefs, he concurs with the notion that the Belichick-Brady work ethic is like a current that energizes the team.
Waters says the connection should not be taken for granted because it is common in the NFL for egos to disrupt a team's rhythm.
"To have a coach set the tone and a player as good as Tom follow that, it's hard for any other player to even think about having a different thought process," Waters says. "If the best player on your team is all-in, 100 percent, then who are you to be different?"
It is no coincidence that Belichick's teams rarely draw silly penalties or engage in inflammatory trash-talk through the news media. It is as buttoned-down a team as there is in the NFL by design. Last year, star wide receiver Wes Welker was benched for the first quarter of a playoff game against the New York Jets after he mocked Jets coach Rex Ryan during a humorous spiel at a news conference.
Remember the antics that used to bring attention to Chad Ochocinco? That was before he joined the Patriots. The wide receiver, in his first season with the team, hasn't violated its code while having a limited role; he also hasn't caused ruffles due to his minimal playing time.
This week, someone reminded Ochocinco that as a member of the Cincinnati Bengals, he predicted that if he ever made it to the Super Bowl, he would show up for media day clad in only a towel. Tuesday, Ochocinco was in uniform like the rest of the Patriots.
"I don't want to get benched for the whole game," he said.
Evans says it irks Belichick more when a player makes a mental mistake than it does when he is set back physically. That links directly to what Evans calls the team's core principles: structure, discipline and humility.
The formula works.
Belichick is poised to match the record for Super Bowl coaching victories that Noll achieved during the 1970s, when the Steelers won four Super Bowls over a six-year span.
Asked about the significance, Belichick -- the first coach to win three Super Bowls in four years -- paid homage.
"It's very flattering to be mentioned in the same sentence with Chuck Noll," he said.
Brady would seem to have a sentimental footnote attached to a Super Bowl victory that would match Montana's total. Growing up in San Mateo, Calif., his parents had 49ers season tickets. He recalls sitting in end zone seats about 10 rows from the top of Candlestick Park.
Yet he insists that his mission is not about Montana.
"Honestly, I haven't really given much thought to any records or anything like that," he says. "For me and for our team, it's really about this one game and the challenges that the Giants present to us."
Then again, a victory Sunday might inspire a few more punch lines.
USA TODAY