"this Is The Way It's Supposed To Be"

--Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Befittingly, Belichick has a library full of books in his brick house in a leafy Boston suburb. While examining the titles one day this summer, a visitor came across a thin, worn paperback.

"The Art of War," the visitor said, looking at the translation of a 2,500-year-old treatise on the Chinese principles of warfare. "Wow. You read that?"

"Yeah," he replied, his expression not unlike the one he wears when a play goes wrong. "I got something out of it. But, you know, 'Don't move your troops when the ground is muddy'? I mean...."

Belichick is not saying he's any smarter than Sun Tzu. He just knows that he's got a pretty good brain, and he's willing to use it. Just as Jeannette and Steve Belichick taught their boy to do.