Michael Holley > Quotes

“You’d have a list of notes of things that the player did and they’d want you to do it that way in practice. So they’d say, ‘He’s a guy who bites really hard on play action, so every time you see this play, do it that way. You want to give the quarterback a good look. You’re not reading it as you, you’re reading it as them. Play how they play and not how you play.’ Now, you’ve got to learn all your stuff, too, because you want to be on the team. So you’re watching film of you being him and you being you.”

- Matt Chatham”
― Michael Holley, Belichick and Brady: Two Men, the Patriots, and How They Revolutionized Football

“Gronk dancing topless was ice cream and cookies compared to this.”
― Michael Holley, Belichick and Brady: Two Men, the Patriots, and How They Revolutionized Football

“No one in NBA Finals history had trailed by 24 and won that game.”
― Michael Holley, The Big Three: Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and the Rebirth of the Boston Celtics

“Overtime unofficially, was won when one of the Patriot's captains, Matthew Slater, called heads on the coin toss.”
― Michael Holley, Belichick and Brady: Two Men, the Patriots, and How They Revolutionized Football

“There’s no bigger wake-up call on the planet than losing a playoff series to the Knicks.”
― Michael Holley, The Big Three: Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and the Rebirth of the Boston Celtics

“Special teams, field position, and situational football are all Belichick staples”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign: Bill Belichick, the Coaches, and the Players Who Built a Champion – Inside the Cerebral Master Strategist Who Forged an NFL Dynasty

“The linebacker protested the move and Belichick shelved him for the rest of the season. Amazingly, he'd never play in the league again.”
― Michael Holley, Belichick and Brady: Two Men, the Patriots, and How They Revolutionized Football

“His family had San Francisco 49ers season tickets, and no sports fan his age could have asked for a better deal. From preschool to senior year, Brady watched his Niners go to five Super Bowls and win them all.”
― Michael Holley, Belichick and Brady: Two Men, the Patriots, and How They Revolutionized Football

“There was the poignancy of a team in red, white, and blue uniforms- called the Patriots no less- attempting to reach an ideal that has long resonated the American soul.”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign

“ESPN and every other media outlet in the country, and world, had a statement from the Patriots and an apology from the Herald Reporter John Tomase, who wrote the errant story about the Rams walk-through, apologized in print and on television. Yet Spygate, not even a year old, was embedded in the culture. There was no delineation between what the Patriots actually did, what they were accused of doing, and what analysts and writers imagined they could be doing.”
― Michael Holley, Belichick and Brady: Two Men, the Patriots, and How They Revolutionized Football

“Allen said he’d leave before ever letting Rondo do it for him.”
― Michael Holley, The Big Three: Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and the Rebirth of the Boston Celtics

“They chose to be introduced as a team.”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign: Bill Belichick, the Coaches, and the Players Who Built a Champion – Inside the Cerebral Master Strategist Who Forged an NFL Dynasty

“They truly respect those who do grunt work, so much so that they are willing to promote them if they show the aptitude to be promoted.”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign: Bill Belichick, the Coaches, and the Players Who Built a Champion – Inside the Cerebral Master Strategist Who Forged an NFL Dynasty

“Good quarterbacks were hard to find. Great quarterbacks were untouchable. Quarterbacks who understood the cap game and how to motivate their teammates were perhaps one of a kind.”
― Michael Holley, Belichick and Brady: Two Men, the Patriots, and How They Revolutionized Football

“He tells one about a family vacation in Europe in the mid-1990s. No matter where they went, the Belichick’s saw dozens of Europe’s aged churches. They saw landmarks and a certain recurring icon. At one point Brian turned to his parents and said, ‘Who is this guy? We’re seeing him everywhere.’
The ‘guy’ was Jesus Christ.
‘I don’t know if I should tell that story,’ Belichick says, shaking his head. ‘People are going to think we’re bad parents.”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign: Bill Belichick, the Coaches, and the Players Who Built a Champion – Inside the Cerebral Master Strategist Who Forged an NFL Dynasty

“They were diverse when it came to religion, age, economic status, philosophy, and race.”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign: Bill Belichick, the Coaches, and the Players Who Built a Champion – Inside the Cerebral Master Strategist Who Forged an NFL Dynasty

“They’re going to come in here and blow smoke up your ass,’ the coach was saying. ‘They’re going to give you blow jobs , tell you how great you are, they’re going to pile it on thick…”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign: Bill Belichick, the Coaches, and the Players Who Built a Champion – Inside the Cerebral Master Strategist Who Forged an NFL Dynasty

“He told KG that if he didn’t win as a Celtic, he’d give Garnett one of his rings.”
― Michael Holley, The Big Three: Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and the Rebirth of the Boston Celtics

“They’d pulled off the biggest single-season turnaround, a forty-two-win improvement, in the history of the sport.”
― Michael Holley, The Big Three: Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and the Rebirth of the Boston Celtics

“Before they can know what they need, they need to know who they are. This is one of Belichick’s core philosophies, and it is why he was sitting in this Gillette Stadium room with a binder, notebook, pens, and pages of football statistics.”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign: Bill Belichick, the Coaches, and the Players Who Built a Champion – Inside the Cerebral Master Strategist Who Forged an NFL Dynasty

“Gasol walked away with 18 rebounds, exactly half of them offensive. That was more than the combined total of Garnett, Wallace, and Baby Davis.”
― Michael Holley, The Big Three: Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and the Rebirth of the Boston Celtics

“Brady had not only spent time at the State of the Union address, clapping knowingly and compassionately; he had knelt before and presumably been blessed by the pope at the Vatican.”
― Michael Holley, Belichick and Brady: Two Men, the Patriots, and How They Revolutionized Football

“He is intrigued by complex minds.”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign: Bill Belichick, the Coaches, and the Players Who Built a Champion – Inside the Cerebral Master Strategist Who Forged an NFL Dynasty

“Belichick’s ‘genius’- a term he does not like applied to himself- is more than an ability to easily sift through distractions and nonsense and identify the central point.”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign: Bill Belichick, the Coaches, and the Players Who Built a Champion – Inside the Cerebral Master Strategist Who Forged an NFL Dynasty

“Take the president of the United States, for example,’ he says. ‘I’m not talking about George Bush specifically as much as I’m generally talking about the position of president. What an awesome responsibility that must be to lead a country under the most scrutiny.”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign: Bill Belichick, the Coaches, and the Players Who Built a Champion – Inside the Cerebral Master Strategist Who Forged an NFL Dynasty

“What most surprises people who don’t know him is how much he enjoys a good laugh, usually when he’s away from work and sometimes when he’s at it.”
― Michael Holley, Patriot Reign: Bill Belichick, the Coaches, and the Players Who Built a Champion