Learning from the Master

	Wide receiver Jabar Gaffney is the latest fill-in player for the Patriots to step up. He caught eight passes for 104 yards in the win over the Jets. Jim Rogash/WireImage
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I spent some time with Mangini the other night at the Jets facility, and I came away impressed. Interesting guy, smart, and focused on the right things, the important things. We talked about the Belichick-Mangini feud for a while. He shrugged it off, making the point that Belichick and Parcells went years mad at each other for various things and now are practically Stiller and Meara. (My dumb metaphor, not his.)

I told him it impressed me that here he was, the youngest coach in the league, and over the last decade Belichick had been the single most important person in his professional life by far, and he wasn't wringing his hands over the fact that there was this huge rift in their relationship. He smiled when I said that, totally unaffected.

"Bill is the best person I've ever seen at separating football from personal life,'' Mangini said. "That's a great lesson I learned from him. Part of being a truly great leader, which he is, is the ability to make the tough decisions that are best for the team but that are not popular. I learned from him that you just can't let things like that interfere with what you have to do with your team. Really, both from Bill and Scott, I learned most of what I know about the game. They were tremendous influences and resources for me.''

Lots of times in lengthy conversations like this, when you're seeking the truth and not just the spin, you go off-the-record and learn things you can use in a story that you can't attribute to the person you're interviewing. Obviously I won't tell you the confidential stuff (believe me, none of it earth-shattering) but I can tell you this: Mangini's respect for Belichick is no act.

Here's the thing about the Belichick/Pioli team: While other teams grouse about being ravaged by injuries, the Patriots shut up, go 12-4 and win their fifth division title in six years -- despite being in the top 10 in the league in games missed by starters due to injury. They expect injuries to happen and insulate themselves against panicking about them by focusing intently on the 41st, 45th, and 50th guys on the rosters as intently as they do the starters.

You don't know much about linebacker Tully Banta-Cain, a seventh-round undersized guy who got his chance because Junior Seau's broken arm forced Mike Vrabel to move inside in the Pats' 3-4 defense. But Banta-Cain had two sacks and three quarterback pressures of Chad Pennington on Sunday. Anyone in the league could have signed Reche Caldwell and Jabar Gaffney on the free-agent street last spring. New England did, and got 13 catches out of them against the Jets.

This is not a year to steal a Pats' coach, but it's inevitable. The more they win, the more they should expect to lose talent.

I don't write this to give Bob Kraft heartburn, but his organization has the best knack in football right now for developing scouting and coaching brains. If they can hang onto everyone, and if the key to it all -- the efficient and biggest team-first superstar in football, Tom Brady -- stays upright, New England will have a real chance to win the Super Bowl every season for the foreseeable future. It's a copycat, thieving league. If I'm Kraft, I'm preparing to be raided some more in the coming seasons.