The key, for Belichick, and hence for all of them, was consistency, which required high levels of both understanding and memorization. If they called a play “Zero Out Slot” one week, they needed to call the same play the same thing the next. To alleviate any confusion, the padders referred to The Cookbook, a three-ring binder that contained diagrams and names for every formation, pass route and run play.
In the interest of time management, they prayed to the padding gods for shorter games, with fewer offensive plays, for their upcoming opponents. They’d scour their own schedule before each season, hoping for opponents with simpler offenses and teams that ran the ball often, because more runs meant fewer clock stoppages, and fewer clock stoppages meant fewer plays. Most teams averaged about 60 plays a game. When they had only 50 diagrams to draw, it felt like Christmas morning.
Padding is so deeply ingrained in Ferentz that sometimes, even now, when he’s struggling to find a schematic solution, he’ll head to the supply closet, grab his tools and begin to draw like it’s 2009. Usually, he unearths solutions through the process he once disdained. By now, he sees padding as two windows that speak to the same sentiment: one, into Belichick’s brain; the other, into how football is passed down.
Same example. If Team X used that approach with No. 96 against Team Y, they would wonder, where are they—the Patriots—weakest, and how might Team X target? At that point, they’re simultaneously starting to see NFL football through Belichick’s eyes and bolstering his game plans, two reasons that elevate padding above other types of busywork coaches pride themselves on inventing.
The minutiae, while painstakingly obtained, adds up to a larger lesson, perhaps the most pivotal wisdom that Belichick imparts. That detail matters as much as anything in coaching, even when it comes to using the same pencils or white erasers .The process of padding, like all processes relying on intense, improvable manual labor, evolved over time.
Which begs a question: Why don’t more teams pad, or at least emphasize the level of detail padding requires like the Patriots? For all the Belichick assistants who went on to other jobs, only Patricia is believed to have taken padding with him . Ferentz sometimes considers teaching his staff at Iowa the process, but he worries everyone would quit.
GregBishopSI “More than 10 assistants who padded did not return interview requests.” A sublime story GregBishopSI
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