Ian O’Connor’s Belichick is a deep and substantive dive into the life of a man many recognize as one of professional football’s greatest coaches. It is a football junkie’s delight, providing generous detail about a man whose football destiny was declared almost at birth ... Belichick’s tremendous success in New England is already well-known to both fans and detractors. I will let them debate his qualities elsewhere, but they are well-detailed in O’Connor’s book.
This is an unauthorized biography ... So instead of 457 pages of hero-worship puffery, we get a fascinating, unvarnished history of what made Belichick the coach he is today. You’re not going to find out why Malcolm Butler didn’t play in the Super Bowl, but if you want to know why Bill is the way he is, this is the book for you ... we’re particularly interested in named sources providing examples of young Bill Belichick bending the rules to gain a competitive edge — including doctoring a college teammate’s lacrosse stick to gain an advantage while avoiding detection from officials. It’s Spygate/Deflategate 101 ... My personal favorite story in the book comes from an anonymous assistant who worked for Belichick when the Hoodie coached the Browns from 1991-95. Belichick likes to test his assistants and can be downright diabolical.
O'Connor offers a fair-minded assessment of the obsessive coach whose triumphant career has been tainted by notorious episodes such as Spygate and Deflategate ... His emphasis is on the long-standing relationship between Belichick, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and quarterback Tom Brady, and how that fueled the team's remarkable run of success ... A valuable portrayal of both the public and private sides of the NFL's leading coach for the past 20 years that will be in demand among sports collections.
