Pats Pulpit
The Patriots’ former head coach spoke the Patriots’ former quarterback.
Bill Belichick knows a thing or two about lifting the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Between his stints as New England Patriots head coach and New York Giants defensive coordinator, he won an all-time best eight Super Bowls over the course of his career.
As he pointed out during a recent appearance on the Let’s Go podcast, however, most of the praise belongs to the players rather than the coaches. And yet, the most important trophy in the game is named after a coach as was pointed out by co-host Jim Gray.
“They didn’t name it the [Bart] Starr Trophy,” he said. “It’s named the Lombardi Trophy.”
“Maybe they should name it the Brady Trophy,” replied Belichick in a not-entirely serious manner. “He won seven of them!”
Belichick’s main point was not to kickstart a discussion about the Super Bowl trophy, but rather to give players their due.
“Players win games. You can’t win games without good players. I don’t care who the coach is, it’s impossible. You can’t win without good players,” he said. “I found that out when I had [Lawrence] Taylor and [Carl] Banks and Harry Carson, Pepper Johnson, Jim Burt, Everson Walls, all those guys at the Giants. And same thing when we got good at Cleveland, and then at New England.
“It’s [Tom] Brady, it’s [Willie] McGinest, it’s [Mike] Vrabel, it’s [Tedy] Bruschi, it’s Corey Dillon, it’s Randy Moss, Troy Brown, Lawyer Malloy, Ty Law, Rodney Harrison. Those are guys that won the games. I didn’t make any tackles. I didn’t make any kicks. That was [Adam] Vinatieri that made that kick in four inches of snow. You got to have good players and as a coach, you want to give your players a chance to win. You want to put ‘em in a position where if they go out there and play well, they’ll have a chance to win. That’s what Coach [Bill] Parcells taught me, is there’s always a way to win. You just got to figure out what it is, and you have to give the players a chance.”
