Belichick

by Ian O'Connor

  Galbraith was close to Kosar, and after the Browns cut the tight end days before the start of the 1993 season, he asked the quarterback for a favor. Galbraith’s agent had told him Belichick was hardly giving a favorable report to teams that might be interested in his services, so Galbraith asked Kosar to ask the coach to knock it off. The quarterback agreed, approached Belichick, and then called his friend back. Galbraith said Belichick’s response, as relayed by Kosar, went like this: “Tell Galbraith to shut the fuck up. I don’t have time to talk about his sorry ass.”

  Galbraith signed with the Dallas Cowboys and was so grateful his former quarterback took his cause to Belichick, he decided he’d spend the rest of his life willing to run into a burning building for Bernard Joseph Kosar Jr., the most popular and powerful of all Browns. Kosar was the local boy who made good, a Hungarian American star in an Eastern European stronghold, Cleveland, that lived and died with its football team.

  Kosar won division titles in his first three seasons and in four of his first five, and he set a league record in the 1990 and ’91 seasons for most consecutive passing attempts without an interception (308), supplanting the legendary Bart Starr. The quarterback had earned a certain status in the organization, and sometimes he used that status to his advantage.

  Bavaro remembered a unit meeting in 1992 when Gary Tranquill, quarterbacks coach, was drawing up a play in the facility’s auditorium. Tranquill was in midthought, telling his Browns about a particular play—“This is how we’re going to do it”—when Kosar interrupted by saying, “No, we’re not.”

  Bavaro couldn’t believe his ears. He turned to face Kosar, who was sitting behind him.

  “I think we really should,” Tranquill responded.

  “No, Coach, we don’t do that here,” Kosar said. “We’re not going to do that.”

  Bavaro felt like he’d stepped into a scene from North Dallas Forty. He personally liked Kosar, and thought him to be a good quarterback. “But that was the attitude from Bernie,” Bavaro said, “and the other old-timers there. ‘This is our team.’”

  As it turned out, the 1993 season would determine who did and did not control the Cleveland Browns. Belichick had taken on other prominent Browns, but he’d never taken on Bernie. This fight would be different. This one would be a heavyweight championship matchup, and the two combatants would end up covered in each other’s blood.

  8

  Mistakes by the Lake

  In 1993, the Cleveland Browns were 3-0 for the first time since 1979, and life was good for their head coach. Bill Belichick had missed out on his most coveted off-season free agent, Reggie White, but he had added to his roster a three-time Pro Bowl nose tackle, Jerry Ball; a former No. 1 overall pick at quarterback, Vinny Testaverde; and one of his old New York Giant favorites at linebacker, Pepper Johnson. Belichick had also convinced Art Modell that he didn’t need to bow to public opinion and hire an offensive coordinator to energize what had been a methodical attack.

  Modell even declared that Belichick would be “the last head coach I’ve hired” and said he felt so good about his man that if the Browns weren’t contenders by the end of his contract, in 1995, “I will get out of football and leave Cleveland . . . If I did make a mistake, I have nobody to blame but myself, and it’s time for me to move on and get out of town.”

  The owner conceded that Belichick wasn’t the easiest guy to like (“He’s no Don Rickles, let’s face it”), but the 3-0 start, highlighted by a Monday Night Football upset of San Francisco and punctuated by a road victory over the Los Angeles Raiders, had Clevelanders suddenly thinking Belichick was more likable than they’d previously thought. His most recent first-round draft pick, “Touchdown” Tommy Vardell, out of Stanford, rushed for 104 yards on 14 carries against the Raiders and temporarily made fans forget the popular veteran Kevin Mack, who had retired and unretired over the summer before being exiled by his head coach. In the end, Belichick ran down the sideline and bear-hugged Eric Metcalf, who scored the winning touchdown with two seconds left.

  Belichick had claimed after the 1992 season, a 7-9 season, that it would be “a real serious, almost criminal act to deviate from the direction and progress that we’ve made.” After three games, it seemed he might actually have a point.

  BELICHICK HAS TOUCH OF MIDAS, read one Plain Dealer headline.

  But one crisis he couldn’t avoid involved the most important position in the sport. A struggling Bernie Kosar had to be benched in the fourth quarter of the Raiders game for Testaverde, who erased a 16–3 deficit and led the Browns to the dramatic victory. Under most circumstances, this would’ve been viewed as a triumph for Belichick, whose off-season faith in Testaverde had been validated.

  Only these weren’t normal circumstances. Kosar was king in Cleveland. Like Modell, Bernie had a cozy relationship with the local media and often called writers to tell his side of a particular story, on or off the record. Kosar forever belonged to the city and its people—often the target of jokes from elitists on both coasts—ever since the day he walked into a University of Miami press conference in a loose tank top and tight shorts, sunglasses buried in his curly dark hair, and said of his decision to leave the Hurricanes for the NFL, “It’s a question I think of me basically just wanting to go home.”

  Kosar avoided the regular 1985 draft and maneuvered his way into the supplemental draft, and the Browns maneuvered their way into the first supplemental pick to grab him. Even without a Super Bowl appearance, the marriage had been a blissful one. Wearing No. 19, Johnny Unitas’s iconic number, Kosar had become nearly as revered in Cleveland as Johnny U was in Baltimore. At 6´5˝, he was gangly and awkward and lacking in athleticism and speed. He had a sidearm delivery and almost never stepped into his passes; he preferred opening up his shoulders and planting his lead foot to his left, like a baseball hitter stepping in the bucket. He won in spite of it all with smarts, competitive intensity, and a talent for staying clear of the interceptions that derailed his former Hurricanes teammate Testaverde over his six seasons with Tampa Bay.

  “There’s not going to be a quarterback controversy,” Art Modell said after Testaverde replaced Kosar against the Raiders. “I’m not going to let it happen. I told Bernie Kosar in no uncertain terms that he’s our No. 1 quarterback, and that’s exactly what Bill Belichick told him.”

  Modell had just given the quarterback a contract extension through 1999 that would pay him an average of $3.85 million a season. He often likened Kosar to a son, and their relationship was an issue Belichick had to deal with. The coach temporarily tabled that concern by immediately naming Kosar the starter for Cleveland’s next game, against Indianapolis, keeping the fan base in a healthy frame of mind. The town was alive with the possibility that its cherished Browns were finally back in business as a serious threat to win the AFC Central, and Belichick seemed to be settling in for a long run in the chair once occupied by one of his coaching heroes, Paul Brown, the innovator he’d describe as “the father of this game.”

  Though Belichick remained wildly uncomfortable and borderline noncompliant in press conference settings, there were small signs that he was making an effort with at least a couple of local media members. He had established a friendship with Channel 8 sports anchor Casey Coleman, son of Cleveland and Boston broadcasting legend Ken Coleman and soon-to-be voice of the Browns. The coach even allowed Coleman to spend a week with him in the 1992 season, starting with the broadcaster and his camera crew showing up every day at Belichick’s Brecksville home at 5 a.m.

  Mary Kay Cabot of the Plain Dealer was another influential media member who was granted access beyond the bare Belichick minimum. The Browns’ PR man, Kevin Byrne, thought the coach respected reporters he believed to be hard workers, and Cabot, a twentysomething on her first NFL beat, was already known as a tireless reporter. Cabot was struck by just how much Belichick cared about the fans’ perception of him. He would sit down with her and review every negative reference to him in her stories, highlighted in yellow
by Byrne, and explain why he thought “Voice of Doom” and similar grim references didn’t paint an accurate picture of him.

  “It really did sting,” Cabot said of Belichick’s reaction to criticism. “I do believe that kind of thing did matter to him early on.”

  Belichick would occasionally invite Cabot to sit in on Monday film sessions also attended by Coleman. If the coach figured he couldn’t make inroads with other media members who regularly skewered him, he thought Cabot was worth the investment of time. Belichick showed her things on tape she never would’ve seen from the press box, and she found his knowledge of the game to be staggering. Though they had their share of shouting matches—Belichick later called Cabot at 7 a.m. to scream at her for reporting that receiver Michael Jackson wouldn’t play that week, thereby tipping off the New York Jets—the coach invited the writer to join him, Coleman, and Mike Lombardi on a private jet for a pre-draft trip to meet a prospect in New Jersey.

  Belichick also opened a window for Cabot into his family life, allowing her to interview his wife, Debby, who was clearly interested in softening her husband’s public image. Bill and Debby had three children by then—Brian, the baby, was born in 1991, on November 25, Kosar’s birthday—and Cabot found Belichick to be a loving father who was pained by the fact that he couldn’t see his kids from Monday through Friday during the season, and who had them at the facility on Saturdays. In other published stories, friends said that Belichick drove Amanda, the oldest, to ballet class and Stephen, the middle child, to karate class, and that sometimes Amanda joined in when her father was going over plays at home. “She just thought he hung the moon,” Cabot said.

  The writer also found in Debby and Bill a couple who cared about the community. The Belichicks effectively saved the Zelma George homeless shelter for women and children by starting a foundation to fund it and by arranging for holiday events for the residents. “They did a lot of charity work around here,” Cabot said. “They were very involved, and he really tried. At a certain point he just basically gave up,” by which Cabot meant not the charity work, just any meaningful attempt to improve his public image. “At a certain point he was like ‘Screw it.’ Especially after the Kosar thing.”

  The Kosar thing. Despite the conflicts with Michael Dean Perry and other prominent veterans, and the fact that some offensive and defensive players (and Nick Saban) thought he was too conservative with his game plans, Belichick’s program appeared to be arriving. He was winning some games and winning over some supporters. He was hosting Bon Jovi at practice. He was coexisting (if barely) with Perry, who had walked out of training camp. He was even getting strong reviews from a beloved figure in Cleveland, 37-year-old linebacker Clay Matthews, a four-time Pro Bowler who, along with linebacking partner and two-time Pro Bowler Mike Johnson, preferred Belichick’s defensive system to Bud Carson’s all-out attack. “We were shooting a lot more threes [under Carson], in a basketball analogy,” Matthews said. “I don’t think that best suited us.”

  But the Kosar thing remained an angry-looking cloud system that hovered above everything Belichick had worked for in Cleveland, until it exploded and unleashed an apocalyptic storm. The first benching of Kosar led to the second benching of Kosar the next week, at halftime of a 23–10 loss at Indianapolis, where Testaverde, of all people, criticized Belichick’s decision to pull the starter. Kosar was pulled again during the following week’s 24–14 loss to the Dolphins, a game in which Miami lost Dan Marino for the year to a torn Achilles tendon, and afterward Belichick named Testaverde the first-string quarterback going forward, before Modell weighed in with his “unqualified and unequivocal support” of the move.

  Testaverde was built like a Greek god and blessed with rare athleticism and a cannon for a right arm. “The guy could’ve probably played linebacker, defensive end, running back, quarterback, tight end, safety,” Belichick would say. Kosar? He looked like a weekend softball player and he was physically beaten to hell. Years later, Bernie would estimate that he’d suffered dozens of broken bones and torn ligaments in his NFL career, and Lord knows how many concussions. He had to stand among the league leaders in anti-inflammatory meds, and he guessed that he’d been knocked unconscious 20 times. He also lost a bunch of teeth from hits absorbed when he wasn’t wearing a mouthpiece, which leads to another reason Belichick picked Vinny over Bernie.

  Kosar didn’t wear a mouthpiece because he had one of the sharpest and quickest minds in football, and he had to communicate clearly with his teammates at the line of scrimmage when he recognized a certain defensive formation and the need to call an audible. Belichick had said before the season that there would be “more emphasis on the quarterback calling the plays than we’ve had in the past,” which was music to Kosar’s ears. Only Belichick was never a big fan of Bernie’s audibles. Nor was Bernie a big fan of Belichick’s pedestrian, pound-the-ball offense. In fact, the two of them had long been engaged in a battle for play-calling control.

  Two of Kosar’s most recent audibles had resulted in touchdown passes—a 30-yarder to Jackson near the end of the first half against San Francisco and a 14-yarder to Jackson against Miami. Nevertheless, Jerry Ball said that at halftime of the San Francisco game, in Cleveland Municipal Stadium, players in the locker room could hear Belichick next door shouting at Kosar, “I don’t give a damn. When I tell you to do something, you do it.”

  So Kosar was out and Testaverde was in. Three nights later, at the monthly meeting of the Greater Ashland County Browns Backers, the Ashland Times-Gazette reported that Jackson had lit into his head coach for being unable to relate to players, for failing to run a functional offense, and for failing to hire an offensive coordinator. “If Belichick would let Bernie call his own plays,” he said, “you’d see a different offense.” The receiver said that if a player questioned Belichick, he would “write you right out of the game plan.” Jackson also complained about the ex-Giants on the roster (“We are becoming the Cleveland Giants”) and about the presence of new team consultant Jim Brown, whom he called “kind of like a little spy” for his friend Belichick, who had met the Browns legend at an NFL alumni golf tournament and had become a supporter of, and participant in, Brown’s Amer-I-Can program for gang members in need of reform.

  Testaverde brought order to the chaos by throwing three touchdown passes in a 28–17 victory over Cincinnati that lifted the Browns to 4-2 and inspired Modell to reveal that he’d extended Belichick’s contract two years, through the 1997 season. The owner insisted that the quarterback situation had nothing to do with the announcement, and that his coach had earned the extension as he neared the midpoint of his five-year deal.

  “I think he’s been treated unfairly by the media and fans,” Modell said, “and I wanted to show my unwavering support for him. The players and the media will have to get used to having him around.” The owner predicted that his Browns would be a playoff team for a long time to come, and he maintained that he had no problem with Belichick’s call to continue on without an offensive coordinator.

  It seemed Belichick was running the offense by committee, with quarterbacks coach Gary Tranquill, running backs coach Steve Crosby, and Ozzie Newsome chipping in. (Newsome had been promoted to assistant to the head coach/offense/pro personnel and was said by Modell to have a strong voice in the offense.) Tranquill had Steve Belichick and Saban on his staff at Navy, and had played college ball at Wittenberg for Bill Edwards, Steve’s college and pro coach and Bill’s godfather. Tranquill had also worked under Woody Hayes at Ohio State, and he was there when Hayes got himself fired for punching a Clemson player at the Gator Bowl. He’d seen all kinds of coaches come and go, and when he arrived in Cleveland, in 1991, as part of Bill Belichick’s staff, he viewed Bill as “a typical defensive coach who didn’t know anything about offense and tried to be involved. That’s what I thought. I just had had enough of that after three years.”

  One game in particular captured the dysfunction of the offensive protocol. Belichick was frustrated with Tranq
uill and the play calling and decided to put Ernie Adams in the hot seat in the booth upstairs. According to a witness who thought of Adams as an exceptional strategist, it was a complete disaster. With Mike Lombardi in the back of the press box calling out colors to identify different sets, this person said, Adams crumbled under the pressure.

  “Lombardi would yell out, ‘Silver, blue,’ whatever the formation was,” the witness said, “and Ernie was slow getting the plays off. He panicked. He’d say, ‘Jesus Christ, Bill, I don’t know what the fuck to call’ . . . I don’t care if they say it’s not true, but Ernie Adams called plays that night. He was the fucking offensive coordinator . . . The thing was too big and too fast for him.”

  Through it all, as quarterbacks coach, Tranquill remained the buffer between Belichick and Kosar/Testaverde. The assistant found Kosar to be perhaps the smartest player he’d ever been around when it came to understanding defenses and his teammates’ strengths and weaknesses.

  Kosar was also a legacy player, the most significant Cleveland Brown since Jim Brown, and he required a lot of heavy maintenance. “He’d been there for so long, and he was kind of set in his ways,” Tranquill said. “He was probably a guy who wanted to do things the way he’d been doing them all the time, and I don’t blame him for that . . . He was very outspoken. I was caught in between.

  “It was a tough situation,” Tranquill continued. “I just kind of remained aloof. We weren’t very good, number one. We didn’t have a lot of really good players on offense at that time. We were still trying to do some things we shouldn’t have tried to do offensively, and it just kind of festered. It was a no-win situation.”