Bill Belichick: Who I Would Like to Coach With
Analysis 6/19/23
This is the fourth piece from Bill Belichick’s sit-down interview with The 33rd Team’s Mike Tannenbaum, who worked in the front office of the New York Jets while the iconic New England Patriots’ coach was a member of the Jets’ coaching staff.
Others in the series: Coaching Beginnings | How Football Has Evolved | His Best Players
Name any NFL coach in history you would like to match your X-and-O prowess against.
Bill Belichick pondered the scenario that The 33rd Team’s Mike Tannenbaum presented.
“I don’t know about coach against,” the New England Patriots’ coach said. “How about coaching with?”
For Belichick, the choice was easy.
“Put Paul Brown at the top of the list,” he said. “I would have loved to have done that.”
Belichick recalled spending time around Brown years ago, going all the way back to Belichick’s teenage years at “summer camps and stuff.”
“I think he really took the West Coast offense, and it was so far ahead of its time with the West Coast principles that Bill Walsh took and turned it into the West Coast offense,” Belichick said. “But, you know, Coach Brown also was so innovative in so many other ways, whether it was the play-calling, whether it was the cab squad, the screen and draw plays that evidently he kind of stumbled into. But that was kind of the creative way that he worked was to see things and figure out how it would disrupt the defense. I know Coach (Tom) Landry was like that, too.”
Belichick also admired Brown’s emphasis on discipline and fundamentals. Much of what Belichick learned about Brown came from Jim Brown, with whom Belichick spent time while Belichick was Cleveland’s head coach and the legendary running back was in the team’s front office.
“When I worked with Jim, and we’d have a lot of conversations, Jim would refer to Paul Brown very frequently,” Belichick said. “(Jim Brown would say), ‘This is the way Paul did it.’ Or, ‘Paul did it a little bit differently.’ Or, ‘Here's why Paul did it this way or that way.’ And it really gave me a lot of insight from a player’s perspective into the way that Paul coached the team.”
George Halas and Vince Lombardi are also on the list of coaches with whom Belichick would like to work. So is Al Davis, whose coaching background Belichick holds in high regard despite Davis being better known as the managing general partner of the Raiders.
There are several other coaching greats whose careers have overlapped with Belichick’s that make his list. “Obviously, coaching for Bill Parcells was a huge impact on my life and my career,” he said.
Belichick was Parcells’ defensive coordinator with the New York Giants. During that time, Belichick matched wits with Landry and with “great offensive minds” such as Walsh and Joe Gibbs.
“Mike Shanahan, we always had a lot of trouble with him,” Belichick said. “And, you know, on the defensive side of the ball … I had a ton of respect for Bill Cowher and Marty Schottenheimer. Of course, they’re kind of from the same tree.
“And honestly, I put Jimmy Johnson up there probably at the top of the list, just what he did defensively at Dallas and then at Miami. And then, you know, Dave Wannstedt kind of followed that a little bit. When I think back about how much I learned in preparing for them and getting ready to play them, they had a lot to do with making me work harder and be better.”
Vic Carucci has been a national editor for NFL.com and a contributor to NFL Network, a senior editor for the Cleveland Browns and an NFL writer and columnist for the Buffalo News. Follow him on Twitter at @viccarucci.