HOW THE PATRIOTS COACH THEMSEVLES

One of my favorite concepts from Tom Izzo is "the best coached teams are player coached teams."  In other words, they are the custodians of their own program.  The police each other and hold each other accountable.  It creates a special culture of ownership that that great teams show.  And by great teams, I mean those teams that are consistently competitive year in and year out and are driving by their culture.  Here is a short piece on the New England Patriots.

"In the biggest games, in any situations and on a weekly basis, his production was phenomenal," Belichick wrote.  "Rodney Harrison embodies all the attributes coaches seek and appreciate: toughness, competitiveness, leadership, selflessness, hard work, intensity, professionalism -- and coming from Rodney, they are contagious.

After all, there were many "normal" things in the locker room that weren't necessarily normal in other places.  Harrison was among those who were there for the installation of things that were not taken for granted.  The players, for example, were coachable, maybe because some of their toughest coaches were their peers.  All of their competitions were based around improving team performance.

They gave out that mental error belt to prevent mistakes in the game.  They challenged one another to get to work early and interrogated players who tried to leave early.  They took the punitive nature of being late for meetings away from he coaches and handled it themselves; if you were the last one sitting down, no matter what time it was, you were late.  In fact, Harrison learned that lesson when he first arrived from San Diego. He and others became enforcers of that rule and many more.  They checked one another's plate for fatty foods.

Fried chicken again today, huh?  No wonder you're making so many mistakes in the game.

From the book "Belichick and Brady" by Michael Holley