Back in January 2002, when the plucky and upstart New England Patriots were preparing to face the juggernaut St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI, Bill Belichick had a decision to make at quarterback. Should he start Tom Brady or Drew Bledsoe?
A quarterback debate that had mostly been regionalized to the New England area during the regular season became an international one before the game's biggest stage. It was, we figured, a difficult call. During the regular season, Brady had performed pretty well as a virtual rookie, but he also had moments when the lack of experience showed. When Brady left the AFC Championship Game against Pittsburgh with a sprained ankle, Bledsoe closed out the win. Even though the coaches were underwhelmed by his performance, he was the veteran, and the Patriots were double-digit underdogs against the Rams. If Belichick started Bledsoe and lost, nobody would have criticized the head coach. If he started Brady and lost, for years to come, critics would wonder what could have happened. In another coach's hands, the decision might have been what Belichick's legendary father, Steve, had once termed a CYA call -- cover your ass.
This mentality -- the tendency to CYA -- is pervasive around the league. Nobody will admit it publicly, but a lot of coaches manage scared, as if they'd rather lose and be blameless than win and risk being blamed. It would take more psychologists than any of us can afford to figure out why. Belichick, though, has never covered his own ass -- and he didn't think it was a difficult call to start Brady that night in New Orleans. Brady had performed better during the season. He had won 11 games, and he had shown himself immune to stage fright. Steve Belichick was impressed, and proud of his son, believing that his decision was gutsy. What happened was history, and it led to more history.
I thought of that moment Tuesday morning, when Belichick named rookie Mac Jones as his starting quarterback and released Cam Newton. For all of Belichick's genius and faults, he has always refused to make CYA moves. What's more, decisions that most of us would consider CYA moves are simple to him. It was simple when he started Brady over Bledsoe, simple when he released Lawyer Milloy in 2003 -- simple when he moved on from countless superstars, risking public backlash. Many presume the benefit of his degree from Wesleyan comes in the complicated arithmetic of the salary cap era, but in reality, the thing it taught Belichick is how to problem solve -- how to eliminate variables and clutter and view an issue in the simplest possible terms, regardless of how controversial it might seem to the outside world.
On first glance, this one seems as controversial as they come. I was one of many who thought that Cam Newton would at least begin the season as the starter, at least until the COVID-19 protocol "misunderstanding" of the past week. Those familiar with Belichick's thinking believe that, in a perfect world, the coach would have preferred to let Newton start the season and see how he performed, showing patience both with Newton, who labored through a brutal season last year when he missed throws he used to hit in his sleep, and with Jones, giving him time to learn the game and watch from the sidelines. Newton's issue with the protocols certainly didn't help, but the former No. 1 overall pick and league MVP lost his job the old-fashioned way: He was beaten out. Jones, while not perfect -- he's still a rookie -- outperformed Newton. According to SIG, the Patriots scored on eight of his 14 drives. He threw no interceptions. Newton was a great teammate and leader for the Patriots, but if you do what Belichick does -- if you remove the clutter -- it was clear: Jones had proven that he gave them the best chance to win.
Make no mistake: The Patriots do need to win. Tom Brady Sr. was only half-joking when before last year's Super Bowl he tweaked Belichick to the Boston Herald by saying that he was now "on a little bit of a hot seat." Belichick had been willing to let Brady walk, with no long-term plan to replace him. Robert Kraft publicly admitted that Belichick's recent drafts were not the "greatest job the last few years." Belichick has never been one to make many excuses, but during last year's 7-9 season he did -- sort of. To explain the struggles, he admitted in the middle of the season that the team had "sold out and won three Super Bowls, played in a fourth, and played in an AFC Championship Game. This year we have less to work with. It's not an excuse. It's just a fact." This year, the team has more to work with -- on paper. And Belichick is putting the ball in a rookie's hands. One will presume that unless it goes poorly or there's an injury, Jones will start against Brady when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers arrive on Oct. 3.
I've spent much of the past year and a half working on a book on the Patriots. And after 20 years of covering Belichick and the team, one of the things I've realized is that, no matter how unknowable the coach seems to be, there are overlooked moments throughout his career in which he reveals exactly who he is. There was a moment from 2009 when he uttered one of the most autobiographical statements of his career. He was in one of his most natural places -- standing before the team, explaining the game, pointing out mistakes and taking responsibility for them, commanding a room better than anyone gave him credit for -- and he said:
"You can say a lot of things about me as a coach. And I'm sure you do, and so do a lot of other people. But I'm just telling you guys something: one thing I'm not is scared."
Eleven years later, Belichick still isn't scared. And he won't be, regardless of how this decision shakes out, regardless of how complicated it was -- or wasn't.