Will Bill Belichick Or John Harbaugh Pull Any Trickery On Monday Night?
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Actions speak louder than words. That applies to New England Patriots football on almost a weekly basis. And it will apply as much as ever when Bill Belichick and John Harbaugh square off on Monday night in a matchup of arguably the two best coaches in the National Football League.
As Belichick typically does with every single opponent ever, he heaped praise on the Ravens organization from top to bottom in his weekly conference calls and pressers. There's no question that he has a good standing relationship with the team over the course of their histories, but it's unclear how Belichick feels about the Ravens - Harbaugh, in particular - after the way the Ravens coach has acted in the nearly two-year aftermath of the Patriots' win over Baltimore in the 2014 AFC Divisional Playoff.
On the other side, it's also hard to gauge how Harbaugh feels about the Patriots' use of "deception" with their unconventional offensive formations in that game - which Harbaugh himself used during the 2015 season. Harbaugh also raised eyebrows earlier this season with the Ravens' use of intentional holding penalties in a successful effort to run out the clock in a recent win over the Bengals.
Amazingly, Harbaugh still sounds upset about the formations in that 2014 playoff game. CSNNE's Tom E. Curran pressed him on the matter in his conference call with the New England media, asking him what's different about the Patriots' trickery and his own deception. Harbaugh basically said the Patriots had an unfair advantage because they tried something new, rather than something every team already knew about.
To avoid getting twisted too deeply in that logical pretzel, let's just move on and take a look at Harbaugh's comments on his relationship with Belichick - and Belichick in general - in his weekly presser:
"I feel like we have a good relationship. ... I have a ton of respect for him. I really like him as a person. I think he's a great coach – greatest coach of this generation. He's earned that title. And I study him. I've always studied him."
Harbaugh clearly studied the same formations he called an "unfair advantage" again earlier this week, since he used them in the very next season and even tried to claim they were somehow different from what the Patriots did. He engaged in more trickeration with the intentional holding play. It makes you wonder if he's going to pull any more tricks out of his hat on Monday night, because he's obviously taken a liking to such deception - even if he will say the complete opposite publicly.
As for Belichick, he was asked directly about all the off-field drama that has permeated the Patriots-Ravens rivalry and how hard it's been to maintain his relationship with Harbaugh. He compared it to coaching against former Steelers coach Bill Cowher when he was in Cleveland, or coaching against Nick Saban when he was in Miami.
"There was never anything personal or adversarial about it," said Belichick. "It was just competitive."
Belichick can certainly say these things, as Harbaugh can say that the Patriots' trickery was different from the Raves' even though it was exactly the same in many ways. But the way these two really feel about this game, and each other, will be answered when the Patriots and Ravens take the field on Monday night.
That sentiment should also extend to Tom Brady, who got hit worse than anyone in the wake of DeflateGate - a controversy the Ravens may or may not have ignited themselves as a response to Brady's "study the rulebook" comment. He always gets a tough game from the Ravens defense and will likely get another one on Monday night, but it would shock precisely no one if Brady had a little something extra and took his game to another level after what the NFL did to him - with, ostensibly, some assistance from the Ravens.
It would also surprise no one if Belichick turned out to be harboring some kind of resentment over what's been done to, and said about, his team since that fateful playoff win over the Ravens. Will Belichick be poised to hand Harbaugh a "receipt" for the way he's been treated in the past two years?
The most likely outcome is that the Patriots and Ravens play each other straight up. No major trickery, no running up the score, no petty vengeance. The two obviously have a deep mutual respect for each other as coaches and that doesn't seem to have changed based on their comments this week. But talk is cheap. Their real feelings will manifest on the field.
Whether this game is "personal" or "adversarial" for either coach remains to be seen. The only guarantee is that it will be "competitive."
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Have a news tip or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.
