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Bill's book has been released.

A review

I expected "The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football" to be one of a few things. Maybe a modern version of Bill Walsh's coaching-cult classic "Finding the Winning Edge," which literally provided granular rundowns of what the former 49ers great told the team on the third day of training camp. Or, unlikely but plausible, a splashy tell-all, settling old scores. Or, perhaps, a business book for the Wharton crowd.

Instead, it's about something more interesting and revealing. It's largely a book about emotion. About emotional intelligence. About connection. About how a leader should treat people.

www.espn.com

Bill Belichick's new book underscores the importance of personal connections

Bill Belichick's new book, "The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football," highlights the role relationships play in the sport.
www.espn.com www.espn.com

"The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football" is intended for a mass audience. But at its core, Belichick is writing for a subset of a subset of a subset of football minds, the truly and spectacularly obsessed. They will find virtue in it, and in Belichick himself, even if they don't like him -- even if they have wondered, as many owners, GMs, and coaches have, if his system works when he's not at the head of the table. Belichick writes that his program is "not for everyone. Neither am I. But to get to the top, and stay there, is close to impossibly hard."

Influence on Tom Brady

In 2020, Brady left New England -- left Belichick -- because the winning was less artistic than intolerable. He recently wrote that a "natural tension" had developed between him and Belichick -- "the kind of tension that could only be resolved by some kind of split or one of us reassessing our priorities." Brady chose Tampa, with its warm weather and warmer team culture, led by a coach, Bruce Arians, who unapologetically championed a vision beyond wins and losses, with cigars and cocktails.

When the season started, it became clear that Brady's new team wasn't as buttoned up as his previous one, wasn't as accountable as his previous one, and wasn't winning as much as his previous one. Sunshine be damned, that didn't fly with Brady.

He didn't miss Belichick, but it was clear that he missed elements of the football world in which he had been raised. It was up to Brady to take what he had learned, adapt it for situation and self, and apply it in his own way. Imagine what forms that might have taken, beyond the mind games that Mayfield detailed on the podcast, of Brady intentionally ignoring or throwing inaccurate passes to send receivers a message. His standards, like his former coach's, are impossible -- until they're not, of course, and teammates reach a level of play even they didn't think they could achieve.

"I thought 'stressful' was not having Super Bowl rings," Brady said on air during the Bucs-Eagles game last season. "So, there was a mindset of a champion that I took to work every day. This wasn't daycare. If I wanted to have fun, I was going to go to Disneyland with my kids."

It was pure Belichick, and could have been straight out of "The Art of Winning."
 
3 Point Stan said:
How the hell is RG supposed to see these 5 tiny women? Dude's gonna waste a perfectly good boner after he is rushed to the hospital for straining his eyes, leading to permanent cross-eyeded-ness.

Way to go, Mike...
Click to expand...

TYVM 3 Point.....it's a good sign that you been brought up right to look after the elderly like this

+10 2 U (y)
 
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