This
is the story of a couple of Bill's, and goes to show what a difference a last
name makes.� On the one hand you have
Bill Belichick a two-time SB champion, while on the other you have Bill Cowher
a three-time home AFC Championship game loser.�
But a closer examination reveals much, much more.
Recent news has surfaced that Bettis has once again put the team first and
accepted a pay cut.� Bettis supposedly
had a heart to heart with Cowher, and Bettis expects that what happened last
season will not occur again - namely Bettis shouldn't lose his job again.� Much has been written about Cowher's
"gut" decision last season to start Zereoue over Bettis.� What's hard to figure out about that, Cowher
simply looked at Zereoue's gut and then at Bettis' and for once made a rather
sharp, intuitive decision.� Of course,
six weeks later Cowher clutched to his pacifier.� So how does this compare to Belichick in a similar situation.� Actually Belichick released team captain and
fan favorite Lawyer Milloy one week before the season in a move that will
immensely help the Patriots salary cap situation going forward.� Oh yeah, the Patriots also went on to win
the SB without Milloy, while the Steelers yet again floundered with an overweight,
plodding RB in a league full of young thoroughbreds.
There's more to this story than Cowher continually defying common sense and
playing the fat, plodding, 30+ game at RB.�
You have the whole Alonzo Jackson story, which in short is simply a
coach refusing to even dress a 2nd round draft choice.� Belichick on the other hand uses his draft
choices early and often in the regular season, so they are ready to contribute
towards a championship run.� Again all
of this has been hashed and rehashed on this site during the regular season.
But here are some interesting differences in perspective that you may not know
about, but that you certainly could have figured.� It turns out that David Romer, a Professor of Economics from
Cal-Berkeley, began working on a research paper a few years ago citing that teams
were punting too much.� He used dynamic
programming and statistical analysis to try and prove his theory, which he
ended up doing quite well.� What's even
more interesting is that there was an article in cnnsi online (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/news/2002/09/01/fourth_down_ap) that got Cowher's
perspective on this research.� Cowher refuted
the Professor's research, by stating that the Professor wasn't accounting for
momentum and other external factors.� Of
course, Cowher is clearly the obtuse one here because statistical analysis
effectively accounts for all those factors and shows whether or not there is
any correlation.� Cowher goes on to
basically denounce the professor's findings and states that coaches who follow
his theories will soon be out of work.
Now here's another link (http://www.iht.com./articles/127586.htm)
to a recent article on Bill Belichick's response to the same professor's
findings.� As you can see from the
article, Belichick not only took the time to read the Professor's thesis, but
he also took something from it.� So
while Cowher was busy denouncing the Professor, Belichick was shrewdly using it
to his advantage.� This folks is another
in a litany of reasons why Belichick is a champion and Cowher will always be an
also-ran.� Belichick is always striving
to learn and grow, and does not clutch to the past and play favorites.� And Cowher is pretty much the
anti-Belichick, in that he is extremely stubborn, does clutch to the past and
refuses to acknowledge the idiocy in keeping players like Gildon and Bettis way
past their prime.