These days, Bill Belichick could give his New England Patriots players a plate of mud, call it caviar and they’d happily chow down, commenting on what a delicious delicacy it is.

Belichick’s Patriots were Toilet Bowl candidates when last season began but ended the campaign as Super Bowl champions. Belichick’s imprint was on every inch of this unlikely title run, making his word worth gold in the locker room. Belichick could sell winter vacation homes in Siberia to his players right now.

Times change.

Back when Belichick was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, he probably couldn’t have told his players a nickel was worth five pennies without them wondering suspiciously what his angle was.

Belichick’s players see him these days, and you’d swear they think the sun shines 24 hours a day when he is around. When everything finally unraveled on Belichick and his Browns, the players felt like it had been forever since they had seen a ray of sunshine.

The transformation is more than a case of times changing. The transformation came about because of a coach changing.

The Browns players had nicknames for Belichick that ranged from the disrespectful to the truly awful.

Patriots DE Anthony Pleasant, who also played for Belichick with the Browns, said of the head coach’s days in Cleveland, "Nobody liked him."

Players were not whistling a happy tune in Camp Belichick in Cleveland.

"There was no light at the end of the tunnel," Pleasant said. "That’s how hard it was. There was no light. You would dread to go to work every day."

Perhaps that’s because work was about as fun as a daily trip to the dentist.

"In Cleveland we were in pads every day," Pleasant said. "It was like military camp every day."

It was a sinking ship, and at times mutiny sounded good to the crew.

"In Cleveland it was just straight ahead," Pleasant said. "Narrow tunnel. This is how we’re going to do it. This is how we did it with the Giants (where Belichick once coached) and all that kind of stuff. I remember sometimes that we would … boycott practice as far as not going out in pads. We said we’re going out in shorts and helmets today. Where guys have a team meeting and say we’re not going out today in full gear."

Even Belichick admits that his approach in Cleveland was too rigid.

"Have I lightened up a little bit? I probably have," he said. "Some of the things that looking back that I did in Cleveland, I might have been a little too rough on them at times."

There is a saying that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Given Belichick an "A" in history and an "A" in personal growth. He did learn from his mistakes. In some ways, the foundation for his Super Bowl success with the Patriots was built from his failure with the Browns.

"I think some of his methods of doing certain things have changed, and I think … any person who doesn’t evolve and doesn’t change and thinks that they have all the answers isn’t going to succeed," said Patriots director of player personnel Scott Pioli, who got his first NFL job when Belichick hired him in Cleveland in 1992. "And I’ll tell you, one of the things I really respect about Bill is, he is analytical not only of other teams’ offenses and other teams’ defenses and his players, he’s very analytical of his own self and his own abilities. And one of the things that I think the players really respect about Bill … is, Bill is a humble guy. He’s not afraid to be self analytical and change some of the things. I think that some people see that from leadership as a sign of weakness. To me, it’s a tremendous strength. And yes, a number of his methods have changed since those days. And good for him that he learned that some of those things had to change."

This is not to say that Belichick changed from a charging bull to a docile house pet. The change was more subtle. He kept his core beliefs such as the importance of work ethic and drive, but he adjusted his way of dealing with his players.

"At the core, what’s important to Bill now are still the same things that were important to him then," Pioli said.

Belichick did not abandon his fastball to suddenly throw all knuckleballs. He still brought the heat when he first arrived to coach the Patriots.

"He wasn’t going to tolerate guys being late, guys being close to being late," Patriots WR Troy Brown said. "He wanted guys at meetings early and ready to go early. He wasn’t taking any crap from anybody. He started issuing fines for every little thing that we did wrong. He came in and we meet more than we ever did. We come in earlier in the morning now. That’s just some of the things that he did. He doesn’t tolerate any B.S. from anybody. We suspended our No. 1 receiver a couple of times … . So he’s not afraid to put his foot down and get his point across. Other guys see that and they’re afraid to mess up after all of that type of stuff."

The difference was that in Cleveland Belichick only threw the fastball. In New England he added a changeup to go with it.

"He’s still very disciplined in what he wants done and how he wants it done," Patriots LB Bryan Cox said. "And after that he’s probably lightened up and jokes around a little bit more, but it’s basically business with him."

Belichick has become like a race-car driver who still keeps the pedal to the metal most of the time, but now realizes that occasionally you have to tap the brakes to keep from crashing into a wall.

This past season the Patriots lost to the Dolphins 30-10. New England’s record fell to 1-3. No one could have imagined the campaign would end with a Super Bowl victory. With his team seemingly going nowhere, Belichick was faced with a choice: Should he be the angry parent who grounds his kid for a month, or was this the time for compassion, a calm talk and a loving arm thrown around a shoulder?

Clearly Belichick would have read his team the riot act back in his Cleveland days.

"(He would have) harped on the loss and just beat us up with the negative," Pleasant said.

The new and improved Belichick instead chose to throw the changeup instead of bringing the heat.

With the loss still fresh in everyone’s mind, Belichick took the team outside for a run. A hole had been dug in the ground. Belichick had a ball with the word "Miami" written on it. He threw the ball in the hole, buried it and said, "We’re going to put this game behind us, and we’re going to move on."

Unlike the way he would have reacted in Cleveland, Belichick gave his team some room to breathe. In film study, he did not suffocate his Patriots players with venom.

"Rather than show negative plays after we played Miami, he showed positive plays," Pleasant said. "Things that we did well, and (he said) if we just keep doing these things, well then we’ll have a successful season. In Cleveland he would have showed all negative plays."

Instead of tearing them down, Belichick kept building his underdog players up.

"When everybody counted us out and said we were sorry and all that kind of stuff, we kept believing in one another," Pleasant said. "He kept emphasizing that to us: Just keep believing, keep working hard, things will get better, just take care of the small things and the small things will take care of the big things."

Belichick was still the boss last season, but instead of treating his men like soldiers in a war in which a general sees them as pawns, as acceptable losses, he treated them like people he cared about.

"I think he learned how to relate to his players and try to talk to them more one-on-one and personal things and try to be more than just a football coach to them," Pleasant said. "Try learning about what’s going on in their livelihood outside of football.

"I think Cleveland was a growing experience for him as a head coach. … I think he had a chance to reflect and think about the mistakes he made and some of the things that he should have done and didn’t do. I think that really put perspective on things once he got fired from Cleveland.

"(In New England) he’s been open as far as listening to players. … Now I think he’s learned that he can’t just keep beating his players up, and I think he realizes there’s more than one way to skin a cat to have success. I think those are some of the things he’s learned, and I think he’s learned to communicate with his players better."

Said Belichick: "When I first went to Cleveland that was 10 years ago, and I think that I’ve learned a lot of things in the last 10 years. I’ve worked with a lot of different people, and I’ve gotten some ideas and seen some things done in a way that I feel like I’ve tried to incorporate into the program that we have with the Patriots. I’m probably a little less involved in some of the details and have delegated those more and probably … have spent more time anyway dealing with some of the bigger-picture things on our football team. Not just what happens between the white lines. I might have spent a little bit too much time on that in Cleveland, just dealing with what goes on on the field, where I think now I probably spend a little more time with things that go on in the locker room, go on off the field, the players’ attitude, their motivation, their chemistry on the team and that type of thing."

In Cleveland, Belichick’s motivational style was sheer force. He was the hammer, and the team was the nail. The problem was that if you hit players over the head hard enough and often enough, they get a headache.

In New England, he pounds his points home with far greater finesse. This time around, the players heads are nodding in agreement instead of throbbing in pain.

"I think that the biggest thing is his ability to communicate," Patriots RB coach Ivan Fears said. "Bill does a lot with making sure he gets his point across. Any way he can do that, any way he can get that across, that’s what he’s going to try to do."

For years Belichick has been given credit from coast to coast for the creativity of his defensive schemes. What is not so well-known is that last season there may have been no more creative mind than Belichick’s when it came to motivational tools.

It started a week or so into training camp. The repetition of training camp was putting the team to sleep. Boredom, monotony and the blahs were causing the stench of an angry skunk. Sensing this, Belichick dropped the meetings one night and took his team to the movies.

The theatre was air-conditioned. The seats were comfortable. The movie was interesting. In other words, it was everything that training camp is not.

Of course, Belichick isn’t one to let an opportunity slip by. He didn’t take the team to see "Caddyshack." He took the club to see "Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure."

Belichick had previously read the book and seen the movie, so he knew that a much needed message would be delivered to a team expected to get steamrolled by the rest of the NFL.

The movie told the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s attempted Antarctic crossing. He and all 28 of his men survived astonishing adversity in frigid conditions for almost two years from 1914-1916 after their ship was crushed.

"That’s what I’m saying about communication," Fears said. "(Belichick is) going to do whatever it takes to show you where you need to be, and that’s what you’ve got to get these guys to understand. And that’s part of it. You look at the struggle those guys went through and not to lose a guy through that whole ordeal, I mean we haven’t been through anything as tough as that."

The movie became something of a rallying cry for the rags-to-riches Patriots all season.

"He was just trying to prove a point to us about how the season can go sometimes and how times can get hard, which they did at the very beginning of the season, and we were able to turn it around and do well," former Patriots TE Rod Rutledge said.

Said DE Willie McGinest: "If they wouldn’t have been a team out there, they wouldn’t have survived. If they hadn’t believed in their captain, they wouldn’t have survived. (Belichick) is the captain of our ship, and we’re the crew members. Everything hasn’t gone perfectly for us, obviously, but we’ve believed in him, we’ve followed his direction and he (got) us to the Super Bowl."

"Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure" was not the last time Belichick would use a visual aid to make a point to his team. On another occasion, he showed his squad a horse race. Three-quarters of the way through the race, Belichick stopped the tape. Four or five horses were battling for the lead, and Belichick asked the players which horse they thought would win. Then he turned the tape back on and a horse from the back of the pack roared to victory.

"It’s a race," Fears said. "You start like we did — 0-2, 1-3 — who would have ever thought we would be (in the Super Bowl)? But like we say, this race is not won in the first turn."

Belichick also showed the team clips of basketball superstar Michael Jordan in action.

"He didn’t show the regular Michael Jordan," Rutledge said. "He showed when Michael Jordan was sick or wasn’t feeling well. Times when Michael Jordan himself had to go through adversity, and he was struggling a little bit. Not the Michael Jordan when he was doing his regular stuff. It’s hard to compete with that. He was just showing how Michael himself had to fight through some things. … It’s all motivation. He’s trying to get a point across to us about the game itself, about competition."

Another tape Belichick showed his players was of an individual significantly less successful than Jordan.

"He showed us (a cartoon of) Roadrunner and the coyote," Pleasant said. "The coyote always gets beat, but he kept trying. Though he falls, he’ll get back up and do it again. (The message was) don’t give up. Keep fighting."

Belichick’s motivational ploys did not always involve movies or tapes. Before the Patriots played the Browns last season, Belichick put posters up on the wall from the game the previous year between the two teams in which the Browns had won. There were pictures of the Browns scoring a touchdown against the Patriots. There were pictures of the Browns running over the Patriots. There were pictures of the Browns breaking tackles attempted by the Patriots. Every day the Patriots would see those pictures staring at them, mocking them, laughing at them.

"You never want to be on somebody else’s highlight tape," Patriots FB Marc Edwards said. "That’s a little bit degrading, and you want to go out and fix those things."

The Patriots did just that, beating the Browns 27-16. Afterward, Belichick gave S Lawyer Milloy one of those posters.

"It was very nice to see Lawyer Milloy ripping the one of him getting run over," Edwards said. "He ripped that up right after the game. He was fired up."

Some of Belichick’s best motivational ploys came when he displayed the ability to ease up, the lesson he had learned the hard way from his days as the Browns head coach.

When Patriots QB coach Dick Rehbein died last season, Belichick earned points with his players by giving them the day off to grieve.

"You saw a (compassionate) side of him then, because he could have said, ‘Well (Rehbein) would want us to continue to practice,’ " Pleasant said. "But he gave us the day off and gave us a chance to reflect on that."

At the Super Bowl, some of the players were unhappy with the size of their rooms. One response could have been for Belichick to get upset that the players’ focus was on room size instead of game preparation. Instead, Belichick went the other way, figuring if it was important to the players then he should deal with it.

Belichick gave his larger room to one of the team’s leaders.

"Bill doesn’t care about things like that," Pioli said. "If that’s what’s going to make someone happy, (he figures), ‘I don’t need a room that big. I’m (just) sleeping in it.’ "

Following Belichick’s lead, some of the other assistant coaches then gave their bigger rooms to players.

Belichick also showed that he had learned when to back off his players after the Super Bowl. Although he had his nose to the grindstone almost immediately after the title had been won — he was plotting what the organization needed to do to move forward as quickly as the day of the team’s victory parade — he told his players that the best way to try to repeat as champions was to get away from football for a couple of weeks.

"I encouraged all of them to get away, forget about football for a while, not to let one season run into the other, mentally refresh themselves and try not to gain too much weight," Belichick said.

Although Belichick was clearly a coach who has evolved over the years in terms of dealing with people, it is important to note that he was not a 100-percent-pure ogre prior to getting the Patriots head-coaching job. Sure he has improved his people skills in New England, but there has been evidence of his decency and compassion in the past.

When Belichick was the assistant head coach with the Jets, DB Kevin Williams almost died and was in the hospital for a pretty lengthy stay.

"Bill was one of the guys that was right there and made sure that everything was taken care of for Kevin. I’m not sure how often, but every time I talked to Kevin, he had just talked to Bill. So I’m sure it was a significant amount."

Of course, Belichick was not feeling the strain of being a head coach then. When he was the head coach of the Browns, for all of the criticism of how he dealt with his players, he showed a tremendous ability to show his appreciation to his coaches and scouts.

"When we were in Cleveland, Bill at the end of every year on his own out of his own pocket … would turn around and write personal checks to every single one of his assistants," Pioli said. "I know for a fact after three different games this past season where … he had one of the interns go down and cash a personal check, came back with $10,000 of his own money … Bill’s money and distributed it to different people. Spread it out and gave it to people in scouting, coaching. ‘Hey thanks. Good job.’ And he never talks about it. He never wants to hear about it. He doesn’t stick around for thank yous. It’s just one of his ways of saying, ‘Hey, we’re having success, we’re doing something good here, they’re rewarding me and thank you.’ It’s just one of those things about Bill that he doesn’t want advertised, he doesn’t want people to know, and I don’t know if he’s going to be pissed off at me for telling this story or not. But it’s those little things.

"When I first started working for Bill in Cleveland there were really some tough things that he had me do whether it was go pick this up, go pick that up. There was a job but there were also little gofer duties involved. If I had to drive him to the airport or drop Debbie and the kids off at the airport, he’d turn around and give me a Ben Franklin and say, ‘Hey, put some gas in the car and keep the change.’ At the time when I’m making $12,000 a year."

How Pioli got his start in the NFL speaks volumes about Belichick quietly and selflessly helping others.

Belichick was the defensive coordinator for the Giants, and they were holding their training camp at Farleigh Dickenson University. Pioli was still in school at Central Connecticut State. Pioli had a hunger to learn about coaching, so he would make the long drive to watch practices. He knew one of the training-camp security guards who worked near the coaches’ area and introduced Pioli to Belichick.

They talked, and Belichick said, "Do you come down here much?"

Pioli said, "Yeah, I drive down every couple of days."

Belichick: "What is it you’re doing?"

Pioli: "I want to be a coach someday, and I want to be as good a player as I can be in college. And when I’m done, I want to be a coach, and I’m just trying to learn more football. I’m just down here trying to learn."

Belichick: "Are you driving two hours each way?"

Pioli: "Yeah, that’s the way it is."

Belichick: "Why don’t you come down and stay for a couple of days.

Belichick let Pioli crash in the dorm suite he shared with another coach. Pioli was also allowed to attend meetings and watch tape.

"Here he is the defensive coordinator of the world champion New York Giants," Pioli said. "He’s on top of the world. He meets some kid like me who’s in college. All he saw was my passion for football and my will and want to learn. He had absolutely nothing to gain from this relationship. Nothing. And he allowed it to be cultivated. He reached out. He helped a guy who loved football. And again, think about the relationship, the dynamics involved there. He had nothing to gain by that relationship.

"To me, that says something about the man and his humility and his lack of ego. There’s not many people in the world who at that stage of their lives and their careers who are that quote (unquote) big time. Bill never big times people."

Once again, this story took place when Belichick was not a head coach. It was when he learned to incorporate this type of people skill to his dealings with his players in New England that he finally achieved enormous head-coaching success.

People skills and motivational skills are not the sole reason for Belichick’s enormous success as a head coach last season. They were the finishing touches. The icing on the cake. The main ingredients were the football qualities that made him such a great assistant coach and coordinator.

For starters, he is a genius at defensive X’s and O’s.

"The biggest thing about Bill is, he really understands what you do offensively," Rams head coach Mike Martz said. "(He) is very specific about attacking you. He knows how to attack you. Then he really understands his personnel matchups, and he gets his guys in the best position to make plays. I think he’s as good as there is at doing that. … He’s a nightmare.

"I think when you watch his players, I think schematically he puts them in the best position to have success. And they’re as well-prepared as you’ll see in terms of making adjustments to what you do and accounting for what you do, which is certainly a big factor."

Said Patriots LB Ted Johnson: "Coach Belichick is a mastermind."

Of course, this should come as no surprise since Belichick was breaking down game film as a kid about the same time his peers were were worrying about whether they could scrape enough money together to buy an ice-cream cone. His dad was an assistant coach/scout for the Navy football team, and young Bill started studying the family business at a young age.

"I’d say the main reason I was interested in it was because like all kids you liked sports and you liked what your dad’s involved in," Belichick said. "I’m sure if he had been a fireman I’d have been pulling the hoses behind him. And then it started as what you expect. A real low level. Just writing down the down and distance and then eventually draw up the formation and put the numbers in of where the players lined up and then eventually start to draw in some plays or draw in some defenses.

"But one of the great learning experiences for me was when I would go on the road with my dad. My dad was a scout. … Just watching him work during the game and understanding how he could see what all 11 players were doing on both offense, defense and special teams — because again, back in those days, the coaches coached everything, it wasn’t nearly as specialized as it (is) now — that I really learned a lot from watching him see an offensive play. You know, the triangle, the guards, the fullback. Being able to get the entire blocking scheme. Being able to get the entire pass pattern. You know, shifting your eyes down the field to see the receivers run their routes once you saw that it was a pass. Defensively doing the same thing. Shifting from the front back to the coverage once you saw the ball was going to be a passing play. So watching him do that in the press box down after down after down for a game, 150 plays, drawing up punt returns and all of that, it was pretty impressive. … So it was pretty educational for me to see him do that, and I think that’s been a big foundation of being able to see the game and see it quickly."

Given that Belichick was scribbling down defenses before he even hit his teenage years, there is a sense that Belichick has seen it all.

"He knows every situation," Patriots OLB coach Rob Ryan said. "He sees the game. The game is incredibly slow for him."

Add it all up, and you have a coach with an amazing ability to dissect the opposition.

"I honestly think he’ll know the (opponent’s) offense better than the teams we play," Ryan said. "They may have a philosophy, but they may not know what it is. But he can tell them what it is. It’s amazing."

A perfect example was this past season’s 38-6 win over Carolina. The Panthers were running what the Patriots call a tog route, in which the No. 1 receiving option runs a vertical route and the No. 2 receiving option runs a 10-yard out pattern. In anticipation of this tog route, Belichick put in a defense the Patriots called "Five Wide," which allowed the outside cornerback to come off on the 10-yard out pattern. Patriots CB Otis Smith did just that, intercepted a Chris Weinke pass and returned it 76 yards for a touchdown.

"Bill put the defense in, and it worked exactly like he thought it would," Patriots DB coach Eric Mangini said.

It’s not just on defense where Belichick displays his ability to pick apart the opposition. When QB coach Rehbein died last season, the coaching staff was one offensive coach short, so Belichick picked up some of the slack.

"From the first week, you realized that you really start to understand the game when he comes in and starts talking about defenses," Patriots QB Tom Brady said. "And if I were to show you some of the sheets that he brings in, oh god, it’s incredible. I made the comment that sometimes I think he knows what their defense is doing more so than their defensive players know what they’re doing. And to have him come in each day to break down film with us, to understand why teams are playing certain coverages, certain schemes each week, you go into a game realizing, hey, there’s nothing this defense can do to surprise us because we’ve seen it all. If they do have a changeup here in the first quarter, coach is going to see it, and he’s going give (it) to us, and we’re going to be prepared for the rest of the game. It’s just phenomenal."

Belichick’s ability to know the opposition better than it knows itself doesn’t happen by magic or by accident.

"The guy is a tireless worker," Fears said.

Pleasant said, "He’s a hard worker. He studies film a lot. He’s the first coach to get there in the morning time, probably the last one to leave. So he really spends a lot of time as far as breaking down film and as far as he tries to find a weakness of a team and try to attack that weakness that the team has."

One suspects that if Belichick were given the choice of a winning lottery ticket or his team playing to maximum efficiency, the lottery prize would roll over to the next drawing.

"He wants perfection, and that’s what we try to give him," Ryan said.

Belichick is not one to ever accept failure. If something isn’t working he’ll keep plowing ahead until he turns the situation into his favor. He may look like he’s banging his head against a brick wall at times, but as far as he’s concerned that will eventually lead to that brick wall tumbling down.

Back when Belichick was the defensive coordinator for the Giants, that was evident.

In a meaningless preseason game, the Giants kept messing up a defensive play called "Stack Cover Two." Determined to get his troops to run the play correctly, Belichick kept sending the exact same play call in play after play after play. The Giants’ defense kept getting it wrong. The opposing team kept running the ball successfully. Belichick kept calling the same defensive play.

"It got to the point where we just started pointing, so I knew it was the same coverage," said Pepper Johnson, a young linebacker for the Giants at the time.

Eventually it became obvious the Giants were playing the same defense on every play, which made them sitting ducks since they were not being allowed to make adjustments or move around.

"It became like practice dummies," Johnson said. "They were just teeing off on us."

Eventually the series ended with the Giants’ defense still failing to make the play call work. Mercy was not awaiting them. Belichick was.

Belichick told his players, "We’re going to play the same defense until we decide to play tough and play the defense right and stop them, because it’s not the defense when they’re running the ball straight up the middle. It’s the players. So we’re going to find out who’s tough and who’s not."

True to his word, Belichick kept calling the same play until the players executed it. When they did, they reacted as though they had won the Super Bowl.

What you get with Belichick is an old-school, no-nonsense type.

"Bill is just a plain old, simple, defensive X’s and O’s type of guy," said Johnson who is now an ILB coach for Belichick’s Patriots. "Why even really just say defense? Just a football type of guy. It’s all the other stuff. All the outside things that come along with the job, that doesn’t tickle his fancy that much. But when it comes down to football, blocking and tackling, the basics of it, that’s Bill Belichick. That’s what so many guys like about him is that he doesn’t take the roundabout way to get things done. It’s cut and (dried). This is what we need done. This is how you see the ball game. And so this is what we’re going to do one way or another. That’s his emphasis and that’s what we do."

What you get with Belichick is a guy who just wants to do the football end of his job and would probably love it if he could eliminate all the bells and whistles. He’d much rather sit in a dark room watching game film than be in the glare of the media spotlight allowing the world to see how smart he is.

"A prime example is him and coach (Bill) Parcells," Johnson said. "Whereas coach Parcells would prepare himself for (Super Bowl media) day, I’m not saying coach Belichick doesn’t, he just, it doesn’t matter. He wings it. Whatever happens happens. He’s a very intelligent man (and) he’s going to handle the questions appropriately. If you didn’t have press day, it wouldn’t matter to him one way or another. (Whereas) I think of coach Parcells, if he had a little podium set up and no one was over there talking to him, I think you would see a couple of sweat bubbles dripping off from his head wondering why no one is over there talking to him."

Said Rutledge: "(Belichick is) no nonsense. He coaches football. He doesn’t get into all the other things that could come involved with football. All he wants to do is coach football. He doesn’t really care about what people are saying or someone else’s style. I think he gets right to the point, and he coaches strictly football."

Belichick’s old-school approach is very simple. Outwork the other guy. Don’t get cute. Don’t count on luck. Count on preparation to pay off.

Patriots RB Antowain Smith seemed to realize as much several days before the Super Bowl when a reporter showed him a lucky chicken leg from a New Orleans voodoo shop.

Reporter: "If you can get that to Belichick and stick it in his pocket the day of the game, you guys are guaranteed to win."

Smith: "Oh, that’s what that’s for. Let me see. You want me to give this to Belichick?"

Reporter: "You think you can get it to him?"

Smith: "I’ll get it to him. I’ll say, ‘Coach, this is our lucky remedy.’ But I know what he’s going to say. He’s going to say, ‘Get that crap out of here.’ "

That is Belichick’s approach in a nutshell. Forget about the silliness. Forget about the window dressing. Forget about peripheral stuff that is unimportant.

Get that crap out of here.

Eliminate all of that nonsense and embrace what is left, which is the important stuff.

This is why Belichick is not a media darling. Ask him an intelligent question and he’ll give you an intelligent answer, but he won’t put on a song and dance show for anyone’s entertainment value.

"A lot of people who are caught up in themselves as their own celebrity or caught up in their own whatever, the perception is that they go out of their way to politic and shake hands and kiss babies," Pioli said. "Bill, because he’s so low key, in reality in a lot of ways is more approachable, but people think he’s unapproachable because he’s not going out of his way to politic. He’s just a regular guy."

A regular guy who some misidentify as aloof when, in reality, he is really just reserved and totally focused on the task at hand.

He doesn’t want to hear people’s words. He wants to see their actions.

Pioli, when he was first hired by Belichick, said, "Thanks very much."

Belichick turned around and said, "Just thank me by doing a good job."

Thinking back to that exchange, Pioli said, "And that’s all that Bill asks of people. It seemed like such a simple thing then, and that’s how Bill is. Bill’s not big on wanting words from people. He doesn’t want to hear thank you. He wants to see and feel thank you. He wants people to reciprocate the respect by just doing what you should do when he gives you an opportunity."

Belichick’s thank yous to others are also done quietly. Actions speak louder than words.

"All those years I was in Cleveland, I watched the guy give away, hand out and distribute about a quarter million dollars over five years to his assistant coaches and scouts and personnel people," Pioli said. "Out of his own pocket that he earned. There is a side of him that people don’t see that’s very generous. Again, he doesn’t get that out in front, because he doesn’t do it for … you know, you see some of the great philanthropists of our time love to let people know that they’re philanthropists. He just wants to do what’s right and let it be. He’s not doing it for the attention or for the pats on the back or the attaboys. Again, it goes back to a big part of his personality. He just does the right thing and lets it be."

Said Pleasant: "You may not see this, but he has a good heart. He has a giving heart. He wants the best for his players and also the best for the team. The thing about him is he’s not into status. He’s just low keyed and low profile. He’s all about team and not individuals."

The team, the team, the team.

Say it, mean it, emphasize it.

He did so by getting his players to act as one fist rather than five fingers.

During pregame introductions at the Super Bowl, the Patriots were introduced as one team rather than as individuals.

"We know we’re a team," C Damien Woody said. "We don’t have individuals, we’re a team. That’s how we’ve been winning all season, as a team. And that’s what we’ve been doing, so why break with tradition?"

Said Patriots S Lawyer Milloy: "That’s what’s so sweet about all of this. We all came together, we grew, we evolved as a team."

The man pushing all of the right buttons was Belichick.