Times Like These Are When I Miss David Halberstam The Most

For Christmas, my brother gave me "The Education of a Coach", David Halberstam's character study of Bill Belichick that traced his football career from its earliest days, when he cut his coaching teeth by helping his father break down tape, through the Patriots' 24-21 win over the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX.

There was a lot of great stuff in the book, including Belichick's unbelievable ability to boil game film down to its most important points (the most frustrating thing about the spying scandal is that Halberstam isn't around to opine on it), but one point in particular stuck in my mind for a long time after I read it. On page 264, Halberstam wrote:

"As [Belichick] continued to work endless hours, even in the off-season, he knew that in countless other NFL offices there were very talented men working equally long hours, studying him and his teams, looking for the tiniest of flaws. Belichick was always aware that if there was a weakness and they spotted it before he did, they would surely exploit it. The danger of being Bill Belichick was that there might be a younger Bill Belichick out there, trying to gain on him, a younger, more cold-blooded gunslinger moving in to challenge the reigning gunslinger."

Hey Bill, you've met Steve, right?