New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has been named the Associated Press Coach of the Year for the second time.
Belichick won it in the year his team not only became the first team in 35 seasons to finish undefeated but in the year in which he and his organization were accused of unfair videotaping practices.
The Patriots charged out to an 8-0 record before they even had their first close game, a Week 9 battle at Indianapolis against the Colts in which the Patriots engineered in a 4th quarter comeback to win 24-20 heading into their bye week.
After the bye they destroyed division rival Buffalo on a nationally televised Sunday night game 56-7 before they found themselves in some battles over the seasons last 6 weeks. In order to complete the perfect season they needed fourth quarter comebacks against Philadelphia, Baltimore and the NY Giants while having comfortable wins over Pittsburgh, Miami and the NY Jets.
But the controversy of the NFL season came in Week 1 when the Jets complained they had caught the Patriots illegally videotaping their coaching signals from the sideline. The Jets, with help from NFL Security, confiscated the camera and tape halfway into the 1st quarter of the game. Later that week NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, convinced the Patriots broke a league rule, assessed the largest penalty in NFL history when he fined the team $250,000 and took away their first round draft pick and he fined Belichick the league maximum $500,000 in the incident.
To a man the team rallied around their coach and as a group issued a giant F-you that was heard from New York to Seattle and commenced a league wide beating no one had ever seen before.
Today, I imagine, Belichick feels vindication with this award as he should. Since Week 1 there has not been evidence of the Patriots doing anything against the rules nor was there ever any evidence provided that what they did in Week 1 could have given them an immediate competitive advantage.
Belichick received 29 of the 50 votes, while Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy had 15 votes to finish second. Also getting votes were Dallas coach Wade Phillips and Jacksonville’s Jack Del Rio (two each), and Indianapolis’ Tony Dungy and Tampa Bay’s Jon Gruden (one each).
Belichick also won the award in 2003 and is the only previous winner since 2000 to have also won the Super Bowl the year he won the award. The only other Patriots head coach to win the award is Belichick’s mentor, Bill Parcells in 1994.
