New England Patriots Envy: The NFL's Ill-Advised Obsession With Bill Belichick Castoffs

The National Football League can't get enough of Bill Belichick's dirty laundry.

Teams have been rummaging through The Hoodie's hamper for years, trying stuff on in a vain attempt to get The Patriot Way to rub off on them. The Houston Texans are taking this league-wide habit to an obsessive new level, practically swaddling themselves in old duds—and the result is going to stink.

Head coach Bill O'Brien was a prototypically hot Patriots commodity: Hired as a low-level assistant in 2007, promoted every season and tabbed to replace a hired-away offensive coordinator in 2011. After just one year at the right hand of Belichick, O'Brien was deemed worthy to replace Joe Paterno at Penn State.

Now he's entering his second minicamp as an NFL skipper, and has to chose between two hand-picked starting quarterback contenders: Brian Hoyer, whom he coached in New England, and Ryan Mallett, whom he coached in New England.

Neither of these players is an established NFL starter. Neither has shown any quality in their limited time. Yet O'Brien brought them in to solve the quarterback problem he inherited. Why? As he told the Houston Chronicle's John McClain, they're system guys.

"We have a strong belief that we have two quarterbacks that really understand our system," he said. "When they watch two quarterbacks with knowledge of our system compete every day, it's going to help the team." Apparently, just the awe-inspiring sight of seeing two threadbare Patriots practicing will make every Texan better.

For over a decade, teams have pointlessly tried to cultivate saplings from Belichick's coaching tree. The hard reality is, there is no way to be taken, no path to be followed, no coaching DNA to be passed down. Belichick is the difference between winning and losing in New England, and the best evidence of this is a long string of lieutenants who have been helpless without him.

It starts with the early New England championship teams, whose coaching staff was incredibly stable through 2004.

Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis was installed at Notre Dame, and has been an industry punch line almost ever since. Defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel took one of Belichick's old jobs, the Cleveland Browns gig, and accomplished little. Defensive backs coach Eric Mangini was promoted to replace Crennel. After just one season, the New York Jets hired him away as head coach, where he lasted just three seasons. The Browns then hired Mangini to replace Crennel, and his tenure there was even shorter.

Meanwhile, Crennel now coordinates O'Brien's defense in Houston.

Patriots offensive assistant Josh McDaniels was promoted to quarterbacks coach after Weis left; Belichick sat McDaniels in the empty offensive coordinator's chair one year later. In 2009, the Denver Broncos hired McDaniels to be the sixth youngest head coach of all time. He traded Kyle Jay Cutler for Kyle Orton, drafted Tim Tebow in the first round, and was fired in the middle of his second year. He eventually took his old job back as Patriots offensive coordinator.

From Rob Ryan to Brian Daboll, the list of Belichick assistants who got bigger gigs elsewhere goes on. Only Dean Pees, who left New England for Baltimore in 2009, and O'Brien haven't been fired at least once.

The track record of the few quality players who've left New England isn't much better.

Cornerback Ty Law led the league in interceptions after defecting to the rival Jets in 2005, but had just seven picks in four seasons for three different teams after that. Safety Lawyer Milloy had 19 interceptions, four Pro Bowl berths and a First Team All-Pro nod in his seven seasons with New England; he had six picks in eight years with three teams after that.

Quarterback Matt Cassel, famously, was thrust into the spotlight when Tom Brady missed nearly all of the 2008 season. Cassel's competent work led the Patriots to an 11-5 record; his Patriots were the only 11-win team since the 2002 realignment to miss the playoffs.

Cassel was traded that April, and had only one solid season in six subsequent years. That one season, he snuck into the Pro Bowl as an injury replacement for—wait for it—Tom Brady.

Randy Moss was more productive as a Patriot than anywhere else, yet was essentially done once they traded him. Mike Vrabel was a First Team All-Pro for the Patriots in 2007, on another team in 2009, and retired in 2011.

It isn't just the stars, either. Running back Lawrence Maroney was a disappointing-but-useful Patriots first-round pick; he ran for 2.1 yards in his first year away from Belichick and never played again. In 2006, the Seattle Seahawks traded a first-round pick to New England for receiver Deion Branch, then signed Branch to a massive six-year, $39 million dollar deal. After just 40 starts in five seasons, the Seahawks gave him back to the Patriots for a fourth-rounder.

In perhaps the most ludicrous case of Patriots sock-darning, utility special-teamer Tully Banta-Cain signed a three-year, $12.2 million contract with the San Francisco 49ers. Two seasons, 15 starts and four sacks later, the 49ers cut Banta-Cain in frustration. The Patriots immediately picked him back up on the cheap; he immediately racked up 15 sacks in 16 starts.

How does Belichick keep taking the rest of the NFL's lunch money—or laundromat money, as the case may be?

Nobody in the NFL is better at assessing player skill, and nobody is better at adjusting Xs and Os to maximize the skill of his players. He acquires players based on their toolset, and he asks them to do what they do well. He understands offense and defense well enough to go without a coordinator on either side, if need be. He has the analytical brain and self-assured confidence to maximize reward in high-leverage situations, even if that means taking risks.

Most of all, he surrounds himself with bright, high-motor players and coaches who'll enthusiastically do his bidding—but he doesn't teach them his secrets. Just look at Belichick assistants like Mangini, Ryan and Jim Schwartz: All of the standoffish bluster and tight-lipped media games, very little of the results.

(Also, and this definitely should be noted, it helps to have Brady behind center).

Belichick doesn't hit on every draft pick and free-agent signing, of course, and a few superlative ex-Patriots (Richard Seymour, Asante Samuel) have been productive elsewhere. But over and over again, the other 32 teams try to copy Belichick's success by scavenging coaches and players he's worn out and discarded—but they never learn from what he's done.

He's so deeply in everyone's head that when he does something counterintuitive like release promising pass-catching tight end Tim Wright in the middle of June, fans and media scramble to figure out what Belichick knows that everyone else doesn't.

The not-so-hidden truth? Belichick himself is the difference. He's the Patriot Way. He made Tim Wright, Tully Banta-Cain, Deion Branch and Mike Vrabel into stars; when they lost their edge or wanted too much money, he let them go and called the next man up. As such, there is something the rest of the NFL can learn from Belichick: If he can't get any more use out of a player or coach, chances are you won't be able to, either.

Sorry, Texans fans, but your quarterback of the future isn't in minicamp—and your coach of the future might not be, either.