Players’ Coach Bill Belichick? Ex-Patriot Tells Fascinating Travel Story
We all know Bill Belichick could be notoriously hard on his players as head coach of the Patriots. However, it sounds like the future Hall of Famer was willing to inconvenience himself to maximize his players' potential.
For example: Belichick is now a member of the cast for "Inside the NFL" where he and former players weigh in on all the league's biggest stories every week. On the most recent episode, former defensive end Chris Long -- who played just one season in New England -- shared an interesting tidbit about how the Patriots traveled.
"Of all the great things I can say about Coach," Long said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, "(was) he flew us first class.
"Did Mike Tomlin fly you in the front of the plane or the back of the plane?" Long asked former Steelers defensive back Ryan Clark.
"We were in the back of the plane," Clark answered.
Long continued: "Because Coach Belichick, the GOAT, had him and the coaches in coach, where they should be -- no offense -- and the big players that need all the leg room, in the front. I've had other coaches with their quality-control guys and their little legs dangling off the front of the thing watching their iPad and I'm back there sandwiched between (Jordan) Mailata and Lane Johnson.
"But this guy (Belichick) sat in coach and that's the kind of guy he was, and I appreciate him not just for that but everything he taught us."
Coincidentally, the Patriots won the Super Bowl in Long's sole season in Foxboro, but he then won it again a year later -- beating New England -- as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Belichick's relative selflessness, though, is in line with a now kind of famous Belichick story about Super Bowl XXXVI where Belichick gave up his hotel suite to star safety Lawyer Milloy.
"(I) just kind of said, 'Lawyer, look: You can have the head coach's room. I don't really care, and if that's not good enough for you, that's the best I can do. Here you go,'" Belichick recalled in the AppleTV+ docuseries about the Patriots. "So then, for the rest of the week, it's kind of 'Lawyer, is everything OK? Is your view OK? Your room good? Got enough space in there?' So we kind of joked about that all week."
"That was the furthest thing from my mind, and just kind of said, 'Lawyer, look, you can have the head coach's room," Belichick recalled in perhaps his lightest moment of the first few episodes. "I don't really care, and if that's not good enough for you, that's the best I can do. Here you go.' So then for the rest of the week, it's kind of 'Lawyer, is everything OK? Is your view OK? Your room good? Got enough space in there?' So we kind of joked about that all week."
Milloy appreciated the gesture.
"I think Coach did that to kind of reemphasize team is always first and kind of just set the tone for what was coming," he said in the documentary.
That week, of course, ended with the Patriots winning Super Bowl XXXVI as 14-point underdogs, and the rest is quite literally history.