Mora: Great players buy in to what Belichick sells

Published: September 22nd, 2011 | Tags: Jim Mora, "A Football Life: Bill Belichick", Bill Belichick, New England Patriots

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The NFL Films series “A Football Life: Bill Belichick” is a serious fix for any football junkie. There’s little question.

Belichick has put his stamp on NFL history in more ways than one, including the “Patriot Way” philosophy of running a football organization. When it comes to the magic that takes place behind closed doors deep inside Gillette Stadium, former NFL coach and current NFL Network analyst Jim Mora — who has spent his adult life around the game — comes away impressed with how Belichick manages people.

“He’s one of the greatest football coaches ever. What I am so impressed with (by) Bill Belichick is the way everyone buys in on his team to what he says. They’re all on the boat with him. The key to that is having a guy like Tom Brady or Mike Vrabel or Tedy Bruschi, your leaders, so that when a young guy comes in — or a Corey Dillon comes in or Randy Moss comes in — he can absorb those personalities into (that) culture, because the great leaders and great players have completely bought in to what he’s selling. Because it’s worked for him. His players have great faith in him, great faith in every decision he makes.”

NFL Network analyst Heath Evans has been in the Patriots locker room — as well as others — and chalks up the difference to a disciplined, single-voiced structure in the organization.

“I’ve been in too many locker rooms that don’t it,” explains Evans. “His rules are his rules. You also know that his word is the end source. There is no struggle for power in this organization. We’ve all been around owners or even offensive coordinators who would sometimes undermine a coach. You can’t do that there. … When you have that structure, you create a winning atmosphere.”

And now for a shameless plug: “A Football Life: Bill Belichick” part II airs Thursday night on NFL Network at 10 p.m. ET.

Follow The NFL Network on Twitter @nflnetwork.

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Packers: Good vs Great McCarthy Era

Senior writer jclombardi: “good vs great” issue about McCarthy era.

Packers–good vs great: The four losses do beg the question: Are the Packers, under McCarthy and Rodgers, capable of winning the close games? It is within those nip-and-tuck affairs that the good teams, as McCarthy made clear to his guys, become great. “Mike’s talked about from the beginning of training camp, really: The enemy of great is good,” Rodgers said. “Meaning that, you don’t want to be remembered as just a good team, a team that made some plays and couldn’t take that next jump to being an elite football team. I saw something written about us this week that said we were still just a ‘good’ football team. And so obviously that’s not something we want to be remembered as. We e still have a chance to accomplish all the things we set forward at the beginning of the season.” Rodgers went on to explain that close games are often decided not only by plays made as the game clock is winding down in the fourth quarter, but by plays made or not made earlier the game. “The talk to the team was the ability to go from good to great, and the factors that are involved in that,” McCarthy explained. “And it always points back to the fundamentals of football. People may get frustrated that I’m redundant, but at the end of the day, that’s how you play football. You have to block the other guy, you have to finish the block, you have to get off that block when you’re on defense, you have to tackle, you have to break tackles, you have to take the football away, you have to take care of the football. “The difference between winning and losing in this league (is), the little things turn into big things, and the little things turn into real big things when you get into December football. We’re really focused on improving ourselves, the things that we didn’t do well in the area of fundamentals, whether it was blocking, tackling, taking care of the football, taking the football away, making the proper adjustments. That’s really what we’re focused on. We just need to fine-detail our work. We’ve done a lot of positive things as a football team, but it’s the little things that have caught us in the four losses.”

Rodgers era-2 of 12 in close games: People are going to write what they want,” the Green Bay Packers quarterback said of his 2-12 record as a starter in games decided by four points or fewer. “But the game-by-game, case-by-case breakdown of that, I think, would be an interesting story.” The results? In nine of the 12 losses, Rodgers led the Packers to a tying or go-ahead score at some point in the fourth quarter. And in the other three losses, he set up a potential game-winning field goal, only to see it missed. Now, Rodgers isn’t by any means blameless. In the nine losses in which he tied the score or gave the Packers the lead in the fourth quarter, he also failed later in the quarter or in overtime to deliver the go-ahead or game-winning score. But in four of the nine losses, Rodgers forged a tie or gave the Packers the lead late.

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Sports Illustrated Blood, Sweat & Chalk: The Ultimate Football Playbook: How the Great Coaches Built Today's Game

The modern game of football is filled with plays and formations with names like the Counter Trey, the Wildcat, the Zone Blitz and the Cover Two. They have become part of the sport's vernacular, and yet for many fans they remain just names, often confusing ones. To rectify that, Tim Layden has drilled deep into the core of the game to reveal not only how these chalkboard X's and O's really work on the field, but also where they came from and who dreamed them up.

These playbook schemes, many of them illuminated by diagrams, bear the insignia of some of the game's great innovators, men like Vince Lombardi, Don Coryell, Tom Osborne, Bill Walsh, Tony Dungy and Buddy Ryan. But football has also been radically altered by the ingenious work of men with more obscure names, like Tiger Ellison, Emory Bellard and Mouse Davis.

In Blood, Sweat and Chalk, Layden takes readers into the meeting rooms-and in some cases the living rooms-where the game's most significant ideas were hatched. He goes to the coaches and to the players who inspired them, and lets them tell their stories. In candid conversations with some of football's most intriguing characters, Layden provides a fascinating guide to the game, helping fans to better see the subtleties of America's favorite sport.

The game of football is cyclical. Coaches today are getting too much credit for formations and offenses that were dreamed up years ago. Tim Layden does a wonderful job of tracing the origin of those ideas in Blood, Sweat and Chalk.
- Urban Meyer, Head Football Coach, University of Florida

Tim Layden explores the minds and ambitions of the game's formative thinkers. Serious students of football must have this on their bookshelves!
- Steve Sabol, President, NFL Films

Blood, Sweat and Chalk is a must-read for all football aficionados. I, of course, especially enjoyed reading about the great Don Coryell, a true innovator in the game we all love. His ideas changed football-and this book shows you how.
- Dan Fouts, Hall of Fame Quarterback, San Diego Chargers

Tim has created a playbook that's instructional, a history book that's fascinating and a football bible that's a must-read for anybody who loves the game. All in one.
- Dan Patrick, Host, NBC's Football Night in America

Tim Layden does a great job telling the story of the people and the ideas that had a major impact on the game of football as we know it.
- Mack Brown, Head Football Coach, University of Texas

This is one of the most important sports books of our generation-and a lot of fun too. The formations and philosophies that win Super Bowls and national titles are made crystal clear. If you live for fall weekends, this is your book.
- Peter King, Author, Monday Morning Quarterback

Price: $26.95

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