Belichick needs Brady more than ever

— -- This has been my opinion from the start about Deflategate: It has been far easier to believe Tom Brady than to believe Bill Belichick.

This has troubled me since 2007 about a coach whose sixth Super Bowl appearance (on top of nine AFC Championship Games) now elevates him into the greatest-ever conversation: Why would a coach this great ever feel the need to cheat? Wouldn't even rule-bending be beneath a man so renowned for his strategic brilliance?

Not only was Belichick busted and punished for brazenly disregarding a rule in the 2007 Spygate incident that permanently tarnished his franchise, but the St. Louis Rams, and now the Carolina Panthers, have publicly suspected the Patriots of videotaping their walk-through or practice before the Patriots beat them in Belichick's first two Super Bowl wins. The Patriots have scoffed at these accusations -- which certainly can be dismissed as paranoid sour grapes. But no NFL coach has been suspected of more nefarious rule-bending than Belichick over the years, from jamming opponents' headset signals to illegally working out players to manipulating the injury report.

No, we are not talking about anything as unforgivable as, say, point-shaving. This has mostly been about gaining even the slightest competitive advantage -- though, for a defensive mind as great as Belichick's, being able to study tape of an opponent's walk-through or practice could provide a significant edge.

But: Where there has been so much hazy smoke, has there been far more fire than Spygate? Recently, one of the greatest coaches ever, the highly respected Don Shula, referred to Belichick as "Beli-cheat."

Wow: That reference reverberated.

I was similarly impacted by the national reaction to Belichick's two press conferences last week (Thursday morning and the second one on Saturday) compared to Brady's on Thursday afternoon. Never in his coaching career has the usually tight-lipped and condescending Belichick been more expansive and expressive in front of the media -- and never has Brady looked and sounded more uncomfortable.

Easy leap: Belichick was telling the truth and Brady was not ... Belichick was completely convincing that he knew nothing, even more so on Saturday, while Brady ("well, uh, you know") was incriminatingly unsure. On Thursday, Belichick even sounded as if he were subtly pointing the finger at his quarterback, indicating Brady knows far more about what happens to footballs before games.

Maybe so.

But in my view, Brady simply did a shaky, out-of-character job of trying to cover for his coach. In so many ways, Brady has constantly covered for Belichick. In fact, to me, Brady made Belichick.

The good in Brady has helped distract from the bad in Belichick.

Over the years, I've spoken with many players and coaches who know Brady, and I've never heard a negative word about him. Not one. Hate him for his supermodel wife and his Uggs, if you must. But not for his character.

NFL kicker Jay Feely, a close friend of Brady's, is one of the best people I know. He calls Brady as good a person as he has ever known.

Drew Bledsoe rushed to Brady's defense the other day after former quarterbacks Mark Brunell (on ESPN) and Troy Aikman (on Dallas radio) questioned Brady's integrity. Bledsoe told Boston.com: "Tommy and I are friends. When he took my job [in 2001] it was tough. ... But it never had anything to do with Tom. He always conducted himself with class. ... To see a guy who has impeccable integrity being accused of being a liar and a cheater, I finally had to stand up and say something."

Brady said in 2011 on WEEI Radio in Boston that he prefers his footballs with less air - though he obviously was referring to the low end of the legal limit. Is it possible Brady would follow Belichick's orders to deflate game-day balls below that limit? It's possible. Would a locker-room attendant or equipment staffer follow Belichick's orders to let some air out of ref-checked balls? No doubt.

Or is it possible the NFL, wanting fan-pleasing offenses to have more and more advantage, has allowed QBs so much leeway in preparing their footballs over the last decade and has grown so lax in checking those balls two hours and 15 minutes before games that Brady and his equipment staff thought the rule was no longer even being enforced? It is.

Heck, it's even possible that Belichick is right: The balls simply deflated going from indoor heat to outdoor cold. Hence, owner Robert Kraft's defiant defense that his organization "unconditionally" did nothing wrong. 

Yet, to be completely objective, Brady is no angel when it comes to talking trash. Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman said last week that Brady started the war of words two seasons ago in a game the Seahawks rallied to win in Seattle. I figured Brady heard lots of upstart Seahawks chirping at his more proven teammates, then responded, "Who the hell are you?"

But Feely disagreed on Monday's "First Take," saying, "Tom is so competitive, you better believe he'll trash-talk you if he gets ahead of you in golf."

I've often talked and written about Psycho Tom, Brady's alter ego who seizes control during games and is capable of running all the way to the end zone to head-butt Rob Gronkowski after a touchdown pass or to get in the face of burned Steelers safety Anthony Smith for guaranteeing victory against the undefeated Patriots in Foxborough in December 2007. Yet on game days, Psycho Tom has often provided the rocket fuel Belichick often can't: emotional motivation.

Where might Belichick be without Brady? Let this sink in: Bill Belichick had a losing record in five of his first six seasons as a head coach. After four in five seasons in Cleveland, he was fired. His first season as head coach in New England -- with three-time Pro Bowler Bledsoe at QB -- the Patriots went 5-11. Belichick fell to 0-2 in his second season after losing his home opener 10-3 to the rival New York Jets.

I've heard from two assistants on that staff who say Belichick feared for his job that night. They certainly feared for theirs. And if that season had turned into another 5-11 or worse, and Belichick had been fired, would he ever have been given another head-coaching shot? Highly doubtful. The coach now in the greatest-ever conversation would have served out his career as a defensive coordinator.

But of course, with five minutes left in that loss to the Jets, Mo Lewis drilled Bledsoe in the chest and the rest is Super Bowl history. Belichick was forced to go with this tall, scrawny, sixth-round pick from Michigan ... who soon won Super Bowl MVP by completing five passes in the final 1:15, moving the out-of-timeouts Pats from their 17 to St. Louis' 30, setting up the final-gun field goal from 48 yards by Adam Vinatieri that shocked the heavily favored Rams 20-17.

Belichick and his staff have been given much credit for seeing something in Brady that other teams did not. But if they had seen this, no way Belichick would've waited until late in Round 6 to take a flier on Brady. 

This is just my theory: Through Belichick's first six years and two games of head coaching, he learned just how scary hard it is to win in this league. Insecurities grew and festered. Belichick never got over believing you have to bend or break rules to win and keep winning.

But it sure helps when for 14 seasons you have a fanatically dedicated, low-ego franchise quarterback who consistently buys into everything you coach, sets a shining example for young players, and even defers salary to open up more cap money for teammates. The biggest reason Belichick has routinely gotten away with opting for coachable players over more talented players -- for his kind of guy -- is that his quarterback has been so routinely great at the most critical moments.

Brady has made his greatest-ever case while benefiting from only one star deep-threat wide receiver (Randy Moss), basically for one year. All Brady did that season was throw a then-NFL-record 50 touchdown passes.

Yet, according to several sources, Belichick has never allowed Brady to get close to him, has always avoided socializing with Brady in offseasons ... which has amused and sometimes amazed Brady but never angered him. Does Belichick merely want to maintain a great coach/QB working relationship? Or is it possible Belichick has grown a little jealous of the credit Brady has received?

I've never thought Brady received enough.

Belichick has gotten away with being such a bad guy in press conferences -- such an embarrassment for owner Bob Kraft's organization -- in part because Brady has always been such a good guy with the media. As poorly as Brady came across in his Deflategate press conference, at least he didn't open with a lengthy statement, as Belichick did, and then dodge questions. Brady immediately opened it up to questions -- nothing off limits -- and allowed reporters to grill him for about 35 minutes.

On Saturday, Belichick dropped a stunningly out-of-character movie reference. He said when it comes to knowing footballs, he's no Mona Lisa Vito, Marisa Tomei's character in "My Cousin Vinny." She helps Joe Pesci's character, Vinny, win a trial with her shockingly detailed knowledge of cars.

Yet here was the missed point: You'd think the great Bill Belichick's knowledge of footballs would be right there with Mona Lisa Vito's knowledge that a 1964 Skylark did not have positraction rear differential. On Thursday, Belichick volunteered that he's so focused on the condition of footballs during foul-weather games that he makes his team practice with all kinds of difficult-to-handle balls. Surely inflation came into play. Surely in 14 seasons Belichick has had at least one conversation with his quarterback about a crucial component of quarterback play: how Brady prefers his game-day footballs.

Maybe Belichick, as Marisa Tomei did, should win an Academy Award. This, remember, is the coach often lauded as paying the greatest-ever attention to detail.

But this is also the coach who was asked by former assistant Eric Mangini, before Mangini's Jets played the Patriots in '07, to please not videotape the Jets' defensive signals the way Mangini knew Belichick had taped other opponents'. Belichick videotaped the Jet's signals anyway. Mangini turned him in.

I've talked to several members of the 2001 Rams who've said they and their coaches are sure their Saturday walk-through was videotaped by the Patriots before that Super Bowl. The Boston Herald broke the story just before the undefeated Pats lost to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII, then later retracted it.

Last week former Carolina general manager Marty Hurney, an ESPN NFL Insider speaking on his ESPN radio show in Charlotte, said he's still angry over how he believes Belichick helped achieve the three-point edge by which New England beat Carolina in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Hurney said: "There are people who swear to me that the Patriots taped our practice down in Houston during Super Bowl week. I can't prove it ... and I hate talking like this because I feel like a bad loser, but it just gnaws at you, and the latest incident brings it back up."

Then Hurney asked the far larger Don Shula question: "Is there a culture of cheating at what most people look at as probably the best organization in the National Football League?"

Maybe so. But -- in this opinion -- Tom Brady has had only one thing to do with that culture. He has helped take some focus off it.