New England coach Bill Belichick preaches to his players about blocking out the “noise.”
But this time, the “noise” won’t just simply drift away into the calm of the Arizona desert.
Before and after the Patriots face the Seattle Seahawks at 6:30 p.m. Sunday in the Super Bowl, the “noise” — perhaps from air sipping out of 11 of 12 footballs during the AFC Championship game – just won’t go away.
Whether the Patriots win the game and raise the Vince Lombardi trophy, questions will linger about what measures were taken by Belichick and possibly quarterback Tom Brady to win their fourth title together.
Normally, a victory would be time to exalt the winners.
It would be time to point out that Belichick and Pittsburgh great Chuck Noll would be the only men to coach teams to four Super Bowls wins. Also, a victory would earn Brady his fourth title, and he would join Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw as the only quarterbacks with four rings.
Belichick wouldn’t say if it bothered him that there’s a national perception that New England is a “bunch of cheaters,” as one person asked.
“You know, right now, our focus is totally on the Seattle Seahawks and this game, and that’s really what we’re about,” Belichick said. “We’ll try to prepare our team and compete as well as we can against a great football organization.”
Brady, who rose to MVP status after being drafted in the sixth round of the 2000 draft, guided the Patriots to Super Bowl titles in three of four seasons, with victories in 2002, ’04 and ’05.
In addition to Belichick’s manipulation of NFL injury reporting rules, the Patriots were first accused of blatant attempts to gain an unfair competitive advantage in 2008.
The NFL threw the book at the Patriots.
The team was hit with sanctions and a hefty fine. They were stripped of a first-round pick, and Belichick was fined an unprecedented $500,000. The league determined that New England was guilty of secretly videotaping an opposing team’s defensive signals in a controversy named “Spygate.”
Since the discovery, the Patriots have made it back to three Super Bowls. They were lost to the New York Giants in 2008 and 2012.
While “Spygate” mostly was attributed to the coach, “Deflategate” could irreparably tarnish Brady’s legacy.
He is at the center of the NFL’s investigation to determine how the game balls the Patriots supplied for use in the AFC Championship game Jan. 18 were inflated below league standards. Brady has denied any wrongdoing, but former pros Troy Aikman and Mark Brunell have pointed accusatory fingers at the quarterback.
The league is focusing on a locker-room attendant, according to Fox Sports.
Brady, 37, could be appearing in his sixth and final Super Bowl.
In addition to his three Super Bowl rings, Brady is a two-time NFL MVP, a two-time NFL offensive player of the year, and the league’s all-time leader in postseason passing yards and touchdowns.
Belichick doesn’t seem to be worried about his legacy. He prefers to give his players the credit for New England’s sustained success.
“I mean, the most important thing is the players, and we’ve been very fortunate,” Belichick said. “We’ve got a lot of outstanding players through the years and this year. Players win games, players make plays.
“You can’t win without great players, and we’re fortunate that we have a lot of them. Seattle’s got a lot of them, and that’s why they win a lot of games, too.”
Belichick has been to nine Super Bowls, counting his three trips as an assistant coach.
In spite of the controversy, this has been a special Super Bowl week for Belichick. His son, Steve, is an assistant coach on his staff.
“Steven was pretty much away for six years with prep school and college lacrosse and then a year of football with Rutgers,” Belichick said. “So, it’s great to have him back, see him on a daily basis and be able to work with him, but also have our father-son relationship kind of not as part of the working environment, but the fact that we work together gives us a little more opportunity to do kind of things like that. So it’s great. ”
The Seahawks, who are seeking to become the first team to repeat since the Patriots in 2005, likely have Belichick’s full attention.
“We could be here for four or five days talking about the Seahawks,” he said. “We haven’t played them since 2012, so looking at their 2013 season and the 2014 season, I mean, we’ve learned volumes and volumes about them.”
The Patriots know they must decipher the Seahawks’ defense. In the NFC Championship game, the Seahawks held Green Bay to three field goals early in the game.
“Well, obviously those were huge possessions in the game and had any of those possessions turned out a little bit differently, it might have affected the end of the game,” Belichick said. “I would say that there are a lot of similarities between the Green Bay game and our game with Seattle in 2012.
“We were 1-for-4 in the red (zone), we missed opportunities down there. We ended up with a penalty at the end of the first half. We were inside the 10-yard line — that would’ve been almost automatic field goal. Those three points and you lose by one, so those three points were big points that we missed in addition to a turnover down there.”
The Seattle defense dismantled Denver in last season’s Super Bowl as they turned the game into a 43-8 rout.
“They battle you for 60 minutes or longer,” Belichick said of the Seahawks. “They’re a very competitive team. They have great physical and mental toughness. They’re a strong lineup, they have a great will.”
Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman, who doesn’t believe the Patriots will get sanctioned for the deflated footballs because owner Robert Kraft and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell are too close, doesn’t believe the controversy will affect Brady’s play.
“That controversy, like I said before, has no bearing on this game,” Sherman said. “It’s not like (Brady’s) going to get interviewed after every play about how much pressure is in the football. He’s going to out there and play the game that he’s been playing for years since he was a kid, and he’s going to have a blast doing it.”
Former coach legend Don Shula, who recently celebrated his 85h birthday, is not a Belichick fan.
“Beli-cheat?” Shula said to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel at the mere mention of his name.
Shula noted that Belichick was caught using video cameras to tape opposing coaches signals when they made a run at the unbeaten record of Shula’s 1972 Miami Dolphins.
Now, will just have to figure out if the Patriots are legitimate champions or cheaters.
