You're welcome, Bill

By Erik Cassano
210 west Writer [send email]

Bill Belichick, you are one lucky man.

You are standing on the precipice of your third Super Bowl in four years. If you win on February 6 (and you should), you will make the New England Patriots the "Team of the 2000s," the same way the 49ers were the "Team of the '80s" and the Steelers were the "Team of the '70s."

You will write your name alongside Bill Walsh, Vince Lombardi and Paul Brown as the greatest coaching masterminds of all time. Sure, you won't be the first to win three Super Bowls in four years, but the Cowboys needed two coaches to do it. Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer had better players to boot.

The mini-runs of the Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders were more the products of John Elway, Dave Casper and Ken Stabler than Mike Shanahan, Tom Flores and John Madden.

You are winning with a philosophy, Bill, not superlative talent.
And I just wanted to say, on behalf of Browns fans everywhere and our smoking wreckage of a team, you're welcome.

You're welcome because we were your own personal safety town. You learned on us. Learned that coaching is more than poring over Xs and Os on dry-erase boards for hours on end.

You've always been one of the greatest at strategy. But when you came to Cleveland in 1991, you were clueless about being a leader, about handling people so they believe in you. You were a terse, sulking charcoal briquette of a man, leaving a trail of proverbial soot wherever you went.

You cut Bernie Kosar when Vinny Testaverde was injured. You kicked a field goal down by 21 points in the fourth quarter. You brought in retreads and castoffs from the Giants by the busload.

And yet, despite the clouds and the "Bill must go" chants, you somehow developed a dominant defense and won a playoff game against your mentor, Bill Parcells, in 1994, when he coached...the Patriots. Maybe it was a bit of your potential leaking through.

This year, you brought your reigning world champs into Cleveland, and pounded the utterly debilitated Browns 42-15. You saw some Pats fans cheering in the near-deserted stands as you left the field, and thrust your fist in the air as you made eye contact.

You are on top of the world now, Bill. But somehow, sticking it to those Browns fans that chided you, made you a punchline in the darkest, most confusing era of your career was a bit more satisfying than your scores of other wins.

But we helped mold you. Your struggles and humiliation in Cleveland forged you. You learned the need to motivate, to evaluate, to get 53 players and a dozen coaches to work as a team. You learned winning doesn't exist in the abstract, conceptual world of the playbook. That is a starting point. Games are won in the real, imperfect world of human interaction. That's what Cleveland taught you.

Now, you are the whole package. Leading like a president, strategizing like a general, winning like a champion. Your bust will be cast in bronze and placed in Canton someday. And we in Cleveland will get a chance to drive an hour south and see what we don't have: everything you have brought to New England.

We don't exist in Utopia. We merely pay it forward to other cities, other teams, other coaches.

You're welcome, Bill.

This column was originally published at papacass.blogspot.com.