Even Tom Brady Wasn't Safe From Bill Belichick's Film-Room Roasting
By Kyle Koster
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick came perilously close to winning all of the Super Bowls, and a primary reason for that is because they were not content unless they won all of the Super Bowls. The duo may be unmatched in terms of not resting on their laurels and remaining steadfastly committed to getting better, to the point of obsession. So it really isn't surprising that the Hall of Fame coach did not hold back on his criticism of the Hall of Fame quarterback during the New England Patriots' notoriously tough film-room sessions.
Ross Tucker and Andrew Hawkins, who both played for the franchise, were on the Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (at the 13-minute mark here) on Wednesday and teamed up to paint a picture highlighting how there are no sacred cows in The Hoodie's kingdom.
"Now Belichick's a fascinating case study in leadership," Tucker said. "Any time I do a speaking engagement they'll always ask about Belichick. I don't know if you were there long enough, Hawk, but it's 100 percent negative reinforcement. The first thing they do at 8 a.m. every day — every day — they show the five worst plays from practice the day before and Belichick just makes fun of whoever messed up. Your motivation there is to not be on one of those five plays."
"You think about it the entire practice too like, 'Oh don't mess up, don't get on Bill Tube,'" Hawkins added. "And you know who gets it the worst? Tom Brady. Oh, he was pissed. The exact quote Bill said was, 'Defense, safeties, I told you you need to be off the hashes in Cover-2, luckily we don't have a quarterback who can hit the broad side of a barn otherwise this would have been a touchdown.' It was Tom Brady he was talking about. This was like Year 15."
Tremendous visual. And really not surprising at all. Critique all you want but all of those rings present a pretty solid rebuttal. If Belichick was willing to take direct aim at the most accomplished quarterback in the history of football, the guys on kickoff coverage quickly understood that they'd better do their damn job to escape this reliable wrath.