It's Better to Be Feared Quotes

“football: it might not be enough to just love your job. You had to want to live in the world the job created. Working with people you like, a tribe with a common goal, would make your professional life far happier than any accolade, salary, or a company’s prestige could. You need to do the work you love, at a place and with people you love. You have to feel—Brady repeatedly returned to this word—“appreciated.”
― Seth Wickersham, It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness

“he suffered from the impatience of the gifted.”
― Seth Wickersham, It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness

“Belichick was the most successful person in an increasingly unhinged profession. Dick Vermeil was a cautionary tale when he resigned from the Philadelphia Eagles in 1983, having burned himself out at age 46. By the mid-2000s, something about the job was so broken that it seemed only an intervention could fix it. The hours, the pressure, the biological imperative to win—all of it conspired to make coaches believe that if they could just bend time to their will, Sundays would break their way. The job turned good men into assholes, or maybe it self-selected for assholes. Joe Gibbs of Washington once told a story from the 1980s about a time his eight-year-old son, Coy, spent the day at work with him. But Gibbs was so consumed, he didn’t realize Coy was there. “Never even thought about him!” Gibbs later said.”
― Seth Wickersham, It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness

“A funny thing about football fans is that almost none of them actually understand what they’re watching, because the game some of them played in high school bears no resemblance to the modern, endlessly complicated sport. There are levels of understanding: most fans, who get the basics; talk radio hosts, whose primary gift is carrying on a conversation with themselves; smarter fans, who are wise enough to know that any sport with an oblong-shaped ball has an element of inherent randomness; film guys, who delve into the schematics, often failing to account for the fact that, on most snaps, many players screw up their assignments, which only coaches would know; writers, most of whom at least try to talk to insiders; former jocks; former greats, most of whom know the game, but can’t explain it because of how easily it came to them or because it was simpler in their day; NFL assistant coaches; NFL head coaches; winning NFL head coaches; Super Bowl-winning head coaches; and finally, at the top of arcane knowledge and expertise in a faintly ridiculous corner of American intellectual esotery, Bill Belichick.”
― Seth Wickersham, It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness

“Most NFL teams were predictable. Coaches were creatures of habit. Most stuck with what they knew. Which was why Belichick not only wanted detailed scouting reports on opposing teams, but also opposing coaches. Few were smart and creative enough to unveil a surprise each week. That basic reality was a massive indictment of the entire industry, and hard to fathom. Bill Walsh once said that the 49ers’ true competition was not the entire league, but rather sever or eight smart teams. Jimmy Johnson, the Super Bowl-winning coach of the 1990s Dallas Cowboys and one of Belichick’s good friends, once told him, “If you just stay out of the way, the other 20 teams will screw it up themselves.” The Patriots cared little about the infant Houston Texans. The Colts, Broncos, Eagles, Jets, Chargers, Rams, Packers-those were the threats.”
― Seth Wickersham, It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness

“coaches would know; writers, most of whom at least try to talk to insiders; former jocks; former greats, most of whom know the game, but can’t explain it because of how easily it came to them or because it was simpler in their day; NFL assistant coaches; NFL head coaches; winning NFL head coaches; Super Bowl–winning head coaches; and finally, at the very top of arcane knowledge and expertise in a faintly ridiculous corner of American intellectual esotery, Bill Belichick.”
― Seth Wickersham, It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness

“emerge”
― Seth Wickersham, It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness