Belichick's Greatest Hits No. 7: The Philadelphia Parade Speech
Bill Frakes. Getty Images.I'm not about to sit here, in the palatial, sea side estate of Stately Thornton Manor that talking about the Patriots help build and claim the best part of Super Bowl XXXIX was Bill Belichick's pregame speech. Hell, only a handful of people even knew about it until it was released days later by NFL Films, who recorded it for posterity.
No, the high points of that day were many, and varied.
Deion Branch's all world performance, 11 receptions on 12 targets for 133 yards, earning him the MVP award he arguably should've had in the Super Bowl before (10-for-13, 143 yards, 1 TD) against Carolina. The Patriots picking off Donovan McNabb three times, once by Tedy Bruschi and two by Rodney Harrison, including the one that effectively ended the game. Which was especially gratifying because Eagles wideout Freddie Mitchell said during the week he didn't know who Harrison was without looking him up:
The way Mitchell backed up his talk with one catch for 11 yards. More significantly, the way Terrell Owens earned the respect of the world by coming off four weeks of missing games with a leg injury to grab nine passes for 122 yards while still way less than close to 100%:
There was also the surreal way McNabb and Andy Reid let the clock bleed dry in the 4th quarter while trailing 24-14 with under six minutes to go. They continue to run the slow-up offense, with full huddles and McNabb coming under center with all the urgency of a guy in the park not wanting to leave until his Pomeranian did his poopies. And Reid hung onto his timeouts like they were redeemable at The Old Country Buffet the next day. The drive succeeded in making it a 3-point game. But by the time they saw the ball again, they were on their 4-yard line with no timeouts and less than a minute to play. Then Harrison's second interception was the ballgame.
Which led us to the two generations of Coach Belichick's sharing a Gatorade schvitz, pictured above. One final hug between the Pats brain trust before Romeo Crennel and Charlie Weis went onto fail in Cleveland and Notre Dame, respectively. And a lot of players memorably holding up copies of the cover of Patriots Football Weekly that had an image of three Lombardi Trophies and the banner headline, "DYNASTY."
To the world outside of New England, that one will always be remembered for Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson's nipple.There was such a demand on all the search engines for images of Janet's (Miss Jackson, if you're nasty) left tittay with that Headpiece from the Staff of Ra hanging off it, that one enterprising tech executive was inspired to create a website where people could upload and share video clips. And YouTube was born.
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But I'm here to shed light on the moment that preceded it all. Because before there was a third Super Bowl banner and pop stars getting to second base under the bra in front of the whole world, there was Bill Belichick as his dry, sardonic best. After pulling out one of the franchise's two Lombardis and reminding everyone that all the money in the world can't buy one, how it takes a team, that individual stats don't matter as much as … Do … Your … Job, he went to work on his team psychologically.
Starting at the 0:52 mark:
"I though this was kind of interesting. At first I though it was … I couldn't believe it, but it's actually true. I'm talking about the Philadelphia parade after the game. It's 11 o'clock in case any of you want to attend that. It's gong to go from Broad Street up Washington Avenue, past city hall then down to Benjamin Franklin Parkway and will end up at the art museum."
In equal parts passive and aggressive. With a dash of the deadest of deadpan. And a chaser of 200-proof sarcasm, he managed to inject a little paranoia into the equation. Despite the fact his team was a 7-point favorite, he made it look like they were the underdogs and no one thought they could win. Furthermore, that they were being disrespected by one of the largest cities in North America.
It was a masterstroke. Even if cities were always planning these things in advance, Boston included, because they have to. Even if some or most of the guys in the room understood that it was just logistics and not disrespectful in the least, they still had to admire the sheer hilarity of it. And it fit perfectly with the culture of a team that flipped out when they got to Pittsburgh for the AFC championship game a few years earlier and saw the Steelers already had their bags packed for New Orleans. And that had a leader like Harrison, who always had a genius for finding some example of someone not believing in them, no matter how insignificant. And even as his team was the defending champion and the best team in football still.
So there was a lot to like about how Belichick got his team that third championship and cemented their status as a true NFL Dynasty. But this bit of Bulletin Board Fodder remains a cut above all of them.