How Bill Belichick outclassed the NFL's latest genius in Super Bowl 53Moments before the biggest game of his coaching career, the NFL’s most gifted offensive mind was thinking like a fan. Sean McVay anxiously waited to see what the greatest defensive coach in the history of the sport had cooked up for his Rams offense.
“I just … I can’t wait to just see what their plan is,” McVay said to one of his assistants during warmups.
Bill Belichick did not disappoint.
Over the next three hours, Belichick showed McVay and the rest of the football world what he and his defensive coaching staff had spent the prior two weeks working on: An eclectic plan that helped the Patriots limit one of the league’s most explosive offenses to a measly three points and served as more evidence that Belichick is not just the greatest coach in NFL history (that conversation is long over) but that the eight-time Super Bowl champion (if you count the two he won as a defensive coordinator, which you should) is in a class of his own.
Belichick’s plan justified McVay’s excitement. On early downs, the Patriots lined up in a front they hadn’t run all year, played an entirely new coverage and reshaped their secondary. And in obvious passing situations, they scrapped all of that and went back to their preferred man coverage with exotic fronts designed to confuse Jared Goff and the Rams offensive line.
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ftw.usatoday.com]
