A Nugget Of Perspective On Bill Belichick's Historic Defense
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The New England Patriots have themselves a dynamic defense at the current moment. Some might even say it's a historic unit. It may well end up being the best defense Bill Belichick has ever coached, though there are a few games awaiting in January and February that will ultimately determine that.
Yet, as it turns out, being a part of a defense like this is nothing new for Belichick.
Each week, after the Patriots' defense has shut down another helpless opponent, the team's media relations staff has distributed some stats, figures, facts and information to help us all try to put this current run into perspective. Among that regular set of information is a note that only seven teams have ever allowed fewer than 200 points in a 16-game season. (The league went to a 16-game schedule in 1978.)
Some of those defenses are remembered as all-time greats, others less so. The full list is here:
1978 Denver Broncos
1978 Pittsburgh Steelers
1985 Chicago Bears
1986 Chicago Bears
2000 Baltimore Ravens
2000 Tennessee Titans
2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The reason that information is interesting is, obviously, that this year's Patriots are on pace to allow just 110 points this season. They're likely to see that number climb, but with Miami, Cincinnati and Buffalo still on the schedule, they should be able to make themselves the eighth team to allow fewer than 200 points in a season. They may even end up beating the Ravens for the fewest ever (165).
Turns out, though, that's not the only interesting part.
An emailer named Chris pointed out that those 1978 Broncos that allowed just 198 points all season? That Broncos team employed a young coach who had spent the previous three years bouncing from the Baltimore Colts to the Detroit Lions, serving as a "special assistant," an assistant special teams coach and a receivers coach.
That young coach left the Lions to join the Broncos in 1978, to serve as the assistant special teams coach and as a defensive assistant.
That coach was, of course, Bill Belichick.
How the unemployed Belichick got that job is quite the interesting story.
As reported by Woody Paige for The Denver Post in 2008, then-Broncos general manager Fred Gehrke asked head coach Red Miller for a favor.
"Fred said he had a friend at Navy who called about his son, who wanted to learn more about football, and he wanted me to give the guy kind of a job," Miller told the Post.
That friend was, of course, Steve Belichick, and the son was Bill, who was in need of a job after the 6-8 Lions underwent a head coaching change.
In an intriguing twist, Miller said that he had to be a bit of a disciplinarian with Belichick.
"He was tardy with a few [scouting] reports, and I told him that wasn't going to happen again, or he'd be out," said Miller, who passed away in 2017. "It didn't [happen again]."
Miller also described Belichick ... well, like this: "I didn't think he was good, bad or indifferent. He had his ups and downs, in general. But he was a sponge. Whatever we said and did, he took it all in."
And, Miller added: "[Belichick] was the most dour young man I've ever been around."
Dour or not, Belichick was asked in 2016 about his time spent on the Denver coaching staff.
"It was very good and beneficial, the year for me, working with Joe Collier, Richie McCabe on the defensive side of the ball," Belichick said back in 2016 on a conference call with Denver reporters. "It was a little bit different in Detroit but Joe's defense was different the way he played it with the way they mixed up the front. They had a couple of good coverage concepts that I wasn't familiar with or hadn't had a chance to really coach before, so being able to see that firsthand, the way Joe looked at the game. I broke down all of the games for him."
Belichick later added: "So it was a great year defensively. I also worked with Coach [Marv] Braden on special teams and I learned a lot there about the kicking game as well, so it was a good learning year."
Unfortunately, Belichick must have been hired too late in the offseason to make it into the 1978 Broncos media guide. So instead, you'll have to look at this picture of Belichick in the 1977 Lions media guide and imagine what he looked like exactly one year later.
From the sound of it, it seems as though Belichick was much more of a student than a teacher when he was a 26-year-old on that 1978 Broncos coaching staff. Still, it's nevertheless remarkable that Belichick has been a part of a coaching staff on two all-time defenses that played some 41 years apart. And with his two sons Steve and Brian on the current Patriots staff, the imprint of the Belichick name on NFL history is likely to continue on for decades to come.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
