Belichick Series Begins on NFL Network

Who is Bill Belichick? (The Fifth Down explored that question in 2008, with readers’ help.)

We may get a better picture in a series that begins Thursday (tonight at 9 p.m.) on NFL Network.

Belichick agreed to be the only coach to be wired for sound for an entire N.F.L. season. He gave NFL Network that access in 2009. The Patriots were 10–6, won the A.F.C. East and lost to Baltimore in the playoffs. That was also the season when Belichick went for it on 4th-and-2 at Indianapolis at the Patriots’ 28 (he was criticized when the play failed and New England lost).

Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com gave the series a thumbs up:

Unless you’ve been on an NFL coaching staff, you haven’t seen an NFL coach like this before. During the 2009 season Belichick gave NFL Films access to everything — the locker room, the sideline, team meetings, discussions with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, quiet moments with Belichick’s son, everything — and the resulting documentary is quite extraordinary.

The NFL Films producer Ken Rodgers, who spent most the 2009 season working with Belichick on the project, wrote:

I could list a hundred things that surprised me about Bill Belichick – his fishing ability, his golf putter, his sense of humor, his incredible knowledge of football history, his rapport with players, his care as a father, even his choice in Halloween costumes – but you’ll see all those things and more in the film.

The thing that surprised me the most, however, is something you won’t see much of at all: sideline reactions to what just happened on the football field.

I swear, if I showed you footage of Bill Belichick after a Patriots touchdown and Bill Belichick after an opponent’s touchdown, you’d never know which one is which. By the time the referee has signaled the score, Belichick is already on to the next play, the next drive, the next situation.

That uncanny ability to control his emotions may be the side of Bill Belichick people refer to when they throw around that word “enigma.”

Extra point A spoof of the trailer for the series is already up on YouTube: