Palladino: Give Belichick 2 Weeks And He Can Stop Anyone
By Ernie Palladino
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Way before there was Dan Quinn, there was Bill Belichick.
The Falcons' head coach was the league's hot defensive coordinator two years ago, having overseen the Seahawks' "Legion of Boom," which pulverized opponents all the way to a Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl XLVIII and a near miss in SB XLIX.
Not ironically, that close-but-no-cigar attempt at the end of 2014, the year before Atlanta snapped up Quinn for the head coaching job, came at the hands of Belichick's New England defense. Malcolm Butler, to be exact, who pulled off a miracle goal line interception of Russell Wilson to seal a 28-24 victory.
For all of Belichick's four Super Bowl victories over the previous 16 years coaching the Patriots, one must never forget that way, way back, he, too, was once the hot defensive coordinator.
Hey, everybody has to start someplace, right?
Belichick's real beginnings, of course, came with the Giants, on the staff of Bill Parcells. As defensive coordinator, he helped win Super Bowls in 1986 and 1990, famously melding Hall of Fame talent like Harry Carson and Lawrence Taylor with other top-flight defenders such as Leonard Marshall, Gary Reasons, Mark Collins, Jim Burt, and Erik Howard to form a hard-hitting, at times creative unit that stopped even the most potent of offenses in their tracks.
Anyone who viewed the Falcons' NFC Championship game blowout of the Packers could easily look back over the years and remember how Belichick's defenses hammered opponents, especially in the postseason.
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The slapping around Aaron Rodgers received from the Falcons' blitz schemes was reminiscent of what the Giants did to Joe Montana in their final stepping stone to the Super Bowl in 1990, a 15-13 win in San Francisco.
That defense harassed the 49ers all game. Marshall, the rotund defensive end who teamed with the always-advancing Taylor to form one of the most feared pass-rush combinations in the league, had two sacks of Montana that day, the last a huge hit that knocked the Hall of Fame quarterback out of the game with multiple injuries.
Marshall also forced two fumbles to go along with the one Howard created with his huge hit on running back Roger Craig well behind the line. Taylor picked up that fumble.
Like the unit Quinn influences from on high in Atlanta, and the one he directed in Seattle before that, physicality was the hallmark of the Giants' defense under Belichick. But we will have to wait and see if the Falcons can match the Patriots' mad scientist in creativity on Feb. 5.
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Today's current philosophy states that if Belichick gets two weeks to prepare for anyone, he's going to come up with something to set the opposition reeling. He didn't even need that time for Super Bowl XXV. The Giants went straight from their Jan. 20 victory in San Francisco to Tampa Bay for a Super Bowl XXV meeting with Buffalo just one week later.
Despite the tight time window, Belichick devised a whale of a plan to confound the Bills' great passing combo of Jim Kelly and Andre Reed. Using mostly a two-man front, something rarely seen in the days before nickel and dime alignments joined other techniques like the zone blitz in commonplace usage, the Giants devoted the back end of the defense to torturing Reed.
By the time the second half rolled around, Collins had punished Reed so severely that he lost all desire to go over the middle.
The gameplan caused the late Giants GM George Young to heap praise on Belichick and his staff.
"They came up with a plan they thought could get it done, and they had the conviction to stay with it and get it done," he said.
His unit's success turned him into a no-brainer pick for the Browns job two weeks later. At 38, he became the league's youngest head coach.
The Giants got stuck with the inept Ray Handley when Parcells abruptly stepped down in May.
Belichick's route to multiple Lombardi Trophies was more circuitous than Quinn's current journey to the big game. There was Cleveland, and then back to assisting Parcells with the Pats and Jets before his final flight back to New England -- can anyone forget "I resign as HC of the NYJ?"
Whether indirect or direct, Canton-bound or just starting out, the matchup between these former defensive geniuses could contain enough defensive quirks to fill a book.
But Giants fans, at least, will remember that Belichick has done it a heck of a lot longer than Quinn.
Follow Ernie on Twitter at @ErniePalladino