Why do all of Belichicks disciples fail on their own? Easy answer, you can't replicate it elsewhere

There is only one Bill Belichick​

All of which leads back to Belichick and the idea of replication. To be fair to O’Brien, he was operating in a manner that he saw work in another franchise. In his mind, the recipe for success was having the power flow from the coach outward. And if other pieces of the structure failed, it was natural to consider taking on that responsibility rather than fumbling around looking for the right person to delegate to.

This is the problem with counting on coaches who are trying to replicate the Belichick experience: All the data has shown that to date, Belichick is a one-off. He’s a unicorn. You might as well be trying to replicate the genius of Mozart or Leonardo da Vinci. This is why his assistant coaches fail. While they may be able to copy some or all of the structure or plan, they can’t continue to create or adapt or grow along the way like Belichick has. Sure, they can trace or play a tune back by reading the sheet music. But how do they adjust on the fly when the piano or canvas is lit on fire?

That’s what makes Belichick special. And that’s what makes his assistant coaches so average. They can take the plan elsewhere, but they can’t ultimately build it into their own unique creation. Eventually, ownership figures that out either through wins and losses or some kind of disruptive organizational power struggle.


In the long view of history, the details of how O’Brien unraveled will get fuzzy. We’ll forget who might have undercut him inside the franchise or which personnel move or coaching mistake helped speed his demise. What we won’t forget is that he took on all the responsibility and had nobody left to blame when it all came to a crashing halt.

As O’Brien said, “We didn’t do enough.” But the truth is he had everything at his fingertips and he didn’t do enough with that power. That’s what separated him from fulfilling Houston’s hope that he’d round into something closer to Belichick. And that’s what makes him just another in a long line of copies who’ll never replicate the New England design.
 
Ground-breaking stuff
 
Because other teams don’t have an owner who is too busy paying for old fashions than listening to his players who complain that they have someone being mean to them.
 
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