No shock: Lightning rod Belichick better than ever

An NFL coach who has competed against Bill Belichick once explained this to me: Belichick is the only coach he's ever feared.
"With the X's and O's he can embarrass you," the coach said.
Rex Ryan said this week the only coach from which he's ever stolen on-field strategies was Belichick. And Ryan is the son of one of the best defensive minds ever.

Bill Belichick got rid of Randy Moss at just the right time, another typically shrewd move by the Patriots coach. (US Presswire)

He's been called a pariah, aloof and Belicheat.
He's been called brilliant, a Hall of Famer and Beligenius.
No coach in the recent history of sports causes the emotive fires of football fans and coaches alike to flame like Belichick. One coach said his nickname for Belichick was "007" because of the Spygate scandal. Another said it's likely nothing will change his opinion that Belichick is the best coach in the history of football.
Once again, as Belichick enters into another huge game, this time against the Jets, the league is micro-analyzing his career.
The general feeling from several coaches and others in the NFL seems to be the same as mine: This might be the best coaching job Belichick has done. At the very least, he continues to demonstrate why few coaches in history can match Belichick's talents, despite his likeability ratings anchoring in the same area code as IRS agents and sports columnists.
The following is a bell that needs to be repeatedly rung, especially now as the Patriots and Jets prepare for a Monday night game that could determine the AFC's Super Bowl representative.
Ding: Like or revile him, Belichick continues to do things in New England that will titillate football historians and force hard choices when the argument of GOAT arises.
Belichick does have Tom Brady, which is like holding a bazooka in knife fight, but what Belichick is doing in New England can't be explained just by Brady.
This year has been typical Belichick. He ejected a moody Randy Moss from New England's locker room just as Moss was losing his play-making ability and sanity. The timing was perfect. In the end, Belichick juiced Moss like an orange, and once all the good pulp was squeezed, he tossed Moss aside.
Belichick next converted the offense from a Moss-centric big-play, deep-threat system into a more constricted offense. The Patriots have run that type of offense before but this year did it on the fly.
He transformed what was a poor defense into a workable one.
Same with the running attack, and he brought wide receiver Deion Branch back for the passing game. He took Danny Woodhead, discarded from the Jets, and turned him into a good player.
Through the Moss chaos the Patriots remained the Patriots: calm, programmed and non-chatty. Few Patriots players ever take their talents to Mouth Beach.
It's been the same old Patriots. Again, Brady is vital, but it's more about Belichick than the quarterback.
There's something else that figures into the Belichick equation. Branches on Belichick's Patriots-grown coaching tree continue to shrivel. Eric Mangini was fired by the Jets and has struggled in Cleveland. Romeo Crennel was 24-40 as Cleveland head coach and was fired. Charlie Weis was 13-12 in his last two years at Notre Dame and was fired. Josh McDaniels has been mostly putrid in Denver and probably will be fired.
So, anecdotally at least, while Belichick has surrounded himself with good coaches, once those coaches depart a significant number falter. Belichick, meanwhile, keeps on churning.
He was at his usual deadpan best this week when he was asked about Ryan's statement that as much as Ryan respected Belichick, he came to the Jets to beat him.
"Sure, that's understandable," Belichick said. "There's no love lost out there between those two teams. We both want to win. That's what we're here for, Jets and the Patriots. I mean, both teams are walking out onto the field to come out victorious. Is that a big news story? That's something we didn't know? [That] the Jets want to win the game? [That] the Patriots want to win?"
That was typical Belichick.
In many ways this season has been typical Belichick as well. If not better.

extracted from cbssports.com