How Bill Belichick helped Steelers win a Super Bowl

BOSTON -- You know, these days in New England, it's challenging to find much positivity surrounding Bill Belichick. A 1-5 start to the season, on the heels of three mediocre seasons in the post-Tom Brady era, will have that effect.

Yet for anyone eager to feel a jolt of the glory days, a story about Bill Belichick's coaching strategies helping another team has popped up this week.

It comes from former cornerback Domonique Foxworth, who was a guest on Kevin Clark's podcast, "This Is Football." Foxworth explained that during his rookie season in Denver in 2005, the cornerbacks -- Champ Bailey, himself and Darrent Williams -- were so good that the defensive strategy came to rely upon zero blitzes. That strategy left the corners in man coverage against receivers with no safety help, allowing the Broncos to get after quarterbacks on third downs. The Broncos would sometimes send the all-out blitz, and other times would bluff that blitz and drop into Cover 3.

"It was baffling people all season long," Foxworth said.

The Patriots, though, figured out a way to beat it.

"Belichick was the only person -- or that team -- figured out how to beat us," he said. "By motioning the slot receiver across, and so whoever was covering the slot receiver would run with him, and then this guy (the slot receiver) would block the end man on the line of scrimmage. So they would get a two-for-one in that situation, where he was blocking and we were covering him, so they would have enough time to run more advanced routes."

As you likely remember, the Patriots did not win this game. Tom Brady threw an end zone interception (which should have resulted in a Denver touchback, alas!), Asante Samuel was flagged for pass interference in the end zone (a play which was offensive pass interference, if anything), and the Broncos pulled away for a 27-13 victory. It was the first postseason loss of the Belichick-Brady era in New England, after the Patriots had gone 10-0 to that point.

The reason it didn't work, according to Foxworth, was because the Patriots just didn't have the personnel to pull off the blocking.

"It didn't work. We beat them because they did not have a player that was capable of blocking that end man," Foxworth said.

Yet as everyone knows, the NFL is a copycat league. And the Broncos' next opponent -- the Pittsburgh Steelers -- learned from the Patriots' offensive strategy and used it to help fuel a 34-17 win in Denver the following week.

Hines Ward, arguably the best blocking wide receiver of his era, flourished in that role.

"The Steelers did the exact same thing [as the Patriots], but they're the one team in football who had [expletive] Hines Ward, who was a slot receiver who was capable of being a tackle, because he was that ferocious a player," Foxworth said. "And we lost to the Steelers, which is a weird story, but we lost to the Steelers because of Belichick's -- I'm assuming they saw what Belichick was doing and were like hey, that works, we have a guy that can actually do that. And they stole Belichick's strategy and beat us."

That story hitting social media prompted some research that showed the Steelers using the strategy effectively:

Additionally, a story from 2019 resurfaced, in which Cowher stated plainly that Belichick offered advice to the then-Steelers head coach before the Pittsbugh-Denver AFC title game.

"When they lost to Denver, Bill called me up and said, 'Hey, congratulations, good luck. Do you need anything? Want to know anything on Denver?'"

The Steelers whooped the Broncos and went on to beat the Seahawks in Super Bowl XL, due mostly to their own roster and performance. Still, a little advice from Belichick seemed to have provided at least some help in the Steelers winning their first Super Bowl in 26 years.