Don't feel bad. Nobody else can, either. Not coaches, not management, not writers, not fans. Coaching plays a bigger role in football than perhaps any other sport. It comes down to one word, one man.
Belicheck.
He's just the Kasparov of football. Everything in the Patriots organization goes through him. Maybe even the hot dog concessions. If he fumbles one single thing, none of what they've accomplished would have ever happened. I guess he didn't. He got every single thing right. He's picked the right players. He has made all the right decisions in the off-season, regular season, post-season and draft. It's like the Theorum of Poker. If his opponent makes a mistake, he wins. If his opponent doesn't make a mistake, he wins. If he makes a rare mistake, he still wins because his opponent makes more mistakes. He's the master of his domain.
Iceman, here's the link to the Pompei column on Yahoo. It's worth reading. We may really have been watching the best coach who's ever lived, because everything you said is absolutely true. Genius is an overused word. If there is something beyond it, he's it. He not only works hard, but he works very, very smart. He gets the most out of his players, and he gets the most out of himself. A very rare trait indeed.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=t ... &type=lgns
CJ
"Are the players better as the stakes go up? It's not an exam; it's a buyin." Barry Tanenbaum