FOXBOROUGH — So there was fairly significant NFL milestone reached on Sunday night with the Patriots' 27-13 victory over the Browns.
Bill Belichick became just the third NFL coach, joining Don Shula and George "Papa Bear" Halas, to record his 300th regular and postseason victory. Not only that, but Belichick became the fastest ever in 434 games (Shula, 445; Halas 455).
Yup, pretty significant. Let's take a look at where that was noted on the "Game Notes" distributed by the Patriots media relations staff.
(Scans page 1) ... Nope.
Page 2 ... Nope.
Page 3 ... Nope.
Page 4 ... Nope.
Page 5 ... Oh, there is is. The fifth note on the page, under the heading Individual Notes.
BELICHICK BECOMES THIRD COACH WITH 300 CAREER WINS; IS THE FASTEST TO 300 WINS
Perfect. Just like so many other things about this night.
When Belichick woke up this morning and looked at the forecast again, this was probably the only time in his career when he snorted, "I hope those clown meteorologists are right this time ... for once in their lives."
Sunday's monsoon-like conditions were perfect for the coach who takes such glee in squirting training camp footballs with a water bottle right before they're snapped. Or just straight dunking them in a tub of water. Plus, he can wear various jackets, hoodies and towels ... football in the elements.
"Because of the rain all afternoon the field was very wet, and I'd say it was slick so footing was a problem," Belichick said postgame of the game conditions. "Certainly ball-handling was an issue and it was tough. ... There were a lot of, I'd say, mishandled balls. I noticed some by them, definitely by us. Kicking was an issue. ... The first half I thought it was a big factor. It was hard to handle the ball, hard to catch it, hard to tackle. ... But it was definitely a factor in the game, no question about it."
Wouldn't you know it? The Patriots didn't fumble the ball once. The Browns? Three fumbles, two lost.
Perfect.
This was a Next Man Up-type of game for the offense. There was Marshall Newhouse at left tackle, a street free agent. Ted Karras at center, a career backup. James Ferentz, who has been released and signed by New England nine times in two-plus years, started at right guard for the injured Shaq Mason. The two tight ends, Ben Watson and Eric Tomlinson, were also street free agents — less than a month ago. The new receiver, Mohamed Sanu, had been here about a week.
That slapped-together offense managed six scoring drives (two missed field goals), with some assistance from the defense.
"You've got to give those guys a lot of credit," Belichick said of the offensive line. "They work hard and they're tough. They keep fighting. Like I said, it's not perfect all the time, but it never will be against a defensive line like that. They compete hard."
Perfect.
The signature play from the offense, when facing third and 10 from their own 16-yard line after the Browns cut the score to 17-10 early in the third quarter, was the ultimate team play: a well-timed screen pass called by Josh McDaniels that saw Sanu fake a slip screen on one side, Julian Edelman attract coverage running a low crosser, and then Joe Thuney picking off the linebacker responsible for coverage to spring James White for a 59-yard play. Four plays later, the Patriots scored to make it 24-10.
"Yeah, it was a great call," Belichick said. "They were in man coverage and the linebacker got picked off going across the field on the screen and James made a great run. We had some good downfield blocking, too, that probably added another 15-20 yards, I don't know, to it, something like that. It was well executed. We've worked hard on the screen game all year and we've had some big plays on it. Certainly that was a big one at a key time in the game."
Perfect.
Then there was Belichick's pride and joy, his defense, which produced three turnovers in the span of four plays at one point. Not only did the defense score on one — caused by Kyle Van Noy, one of Belichick's finest reclamation projects, unselfishly taking on a blocker at the point of attack — but they took points off the board with another fumble, and handed the offense seven points after an interception.
Jonathan Jones, an undrafted free agent in 2016 who just received a contract extension, got the fumble after hustling some 50 yards down field. Lawrence Guy, an unheralded and an anonymous two-gapper most of the time in Belichick's scheme, produced the Big Boy Interception.
"He plays with great effort all of the time and he's made so many big plays for us in the four years that he's been here," Belichick said of Jones. "That was a tremendous play."
Perfect.
Then there were Belichick's own comments about his milestone which were, as expected, dismissive of any individual accomplishment.
"It's a great privilege to coach this team and to coach the guys that I've coached throughout my career," said Belichick. "Fortunately, I didn't play in any of those games. That's a good thing for us, but I've had a lot of good players, a lot of great players and they're the ones that win the games. I've had a lot of great assistant coaches on my staff through the wins at Cleveland and certainly here. I was a part of those but, honestly, players win games in this league and I've been fortunate that I've coached a lot of great ones.
Belichick was even asked his ... emotion about the accomplishment.
"Yeah, I mean, look, it's always good to win. It's good to beat Cleveland. It's good to beat anybody," Belichick said. "It's a tough league to win in, so I'm proud of what the guys did, proud of what this team accomplished today, but we've got bigger goals ahead. We know the Ravens are going to be tough next week. They don't care about this game or what I did or what anybody else did, so we're going to have to turn the page quickly and move on to Baltimore."
Perfect.
Belichick doesn't want to talk about it. He was obviously done taking questions on it based on his last response. And, yes, the Ravens on the road coming off their bye week is going to be a big game.
But what Belichick accomplished on Sunday night was a huge achievement and is a testament to him being the best coach in NFL history. He deserves to take a bow on the way to breaking Shula's record of 347 victories.
Good thing Robert Kraft was there to honor Belichick ... and take digs at the Jets and the Browns, both teams that had Belichick as their head coaches at one point in time. Their loss. New England's gain.
Robert Kraft presents Bill Belichick with the game ball after his 300th win. pic.twitter.com/Wy3h9geOGo
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) October 28, 2019