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For the second straight week, Bill Belichick made history in a New England Patriots win.
In Week 5, he coached his team to a shutout victory over the Detroit Lions, which was his 400th game as the Patriots' head coach. On Sunday, Belichick won his 324th game as a head coach, tying him with George Halas for the second-most wins by a head coach in NFL history.
Following the Patriots' 38-15 win over the Browns in Cleveland, Belichick was humble and gracious when he was asked what it meant to win as many games as Halas did.
“You can’t win games in this league without good players,” Bill Belichick said. “I’m very fortunate to have coached a lot of great players and have had a lot of great coaches on my staff through the years. A lot of those guys have gone on to have tremendous careers and players obviously – many of them are Patriots Hall of Fame or NFL Hall of Fame, or are going to be. Winning games in this league is about having good players and I’m very fortunate to have a lot of them. I had them in New York. I had them in Cleveland. I have them here.”
Belichick also recalled memories he had of the former Chicago Bears coach who he tied on the all-time wins list on Sunday.
“George Halas, Paul Brown, I probably shouldn’t make that list. They were my idols,” Bill Belichick said. “Coach Halas was again a friend of my dad’s. My dad knew people on the staff that coached for Coach Halas. He coached Bill Wade at Vanderbilt, so they had a lot of Chicago-Halas connections. When they came to Baltimore, we would go to the locker room after the game, stuff like that. They were always very gracious and generous. They let me hang around and stuff like that.
“A ton of respect for Coach Halas and the McCaskey family, and what he did for professional football and the way that he – and since we’re here, Paul Brown – and others like that paved the way for us as coaches and paved the way for the National Football League to grow into what it is today. They laid a lot of the building blocks.”
Bill Belichick waves to a vocal Pats crowd in Cleveland. He got his 324th win today, tying him with George Halas for 2nd all time. pic.twitter.com/9LR2YggDiA
— The Camera Guys (@NBCSCameraGuys) October 16, 2022
In the moments after the game, Belichick told his Patriots squad to head over to the Cleveland Browns Ring of Honor and specifically look at the names of Paul Brown, Bill Willis, Marion Motley, Ozzie Newsome, and Jim Brown. He wanted his players to know “how important five of those names are.”
“All of them are great players up there and great people up there, so I’m not saying that. But there’s five that to me really absolutely stand out on the Mount Rushmore of this conversation,” Bill Belichick said. “Paul Brown for reintegrating the NFL. He came into the NFL through the All-American Conference with Bill Willis and Marion Motley. So those three. Then of course Ozzie Newsome being one of the first Black players in Alabama and one of the great ones. Great player. Great general manager. Great person. Then of course, the great Jim Brown. He kind of stands above everybody with what he’s done for equality, what he stands for, what he was as a football player, what he is as a man.
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“Paul Brown took a lot of courage to do what he did. Took a lot of courage to do what Willis and Motley did. Lot of courage to do what Ozzie did. It took a lot of courage for Jim Brown to do what he did. I told them I thought they should go out there and just think for a minute about some of the sacrifices that those guys made. Not just on the field. Not just as players, but as people and for what they stood for.”
Huge congrats to Coach Belichick on 2nd all time in wins. I know I do a lot of impressions and give you a hard time but I truly can’t thank you enough for the opportunity you gave me. Congrats coach. 🐐 🎧
— Julian Edelman (@Edelman11) October 16, 2022
Belichick reaching a record mark could have had extra meaning to him with Sunday's win. He coached the Browns from 1991-95 before getting fired before the team moved to Baltimore and became the Ravens in 1996. Belichick said it's simply “good to win every week” when asked if Sunday's win was any more special considering that it came against the Browns, who returned to the NFL in 1999.
One of the Patriots' captains, though, thought it was special that Belichick reached Halas' mark in Cleveland.
“Unbelievable what he’s done. I think it’s only fitting that we’re here in Cleveland, the place that ran him out,” Matthew Slater said. “I think he’s — all these years later — proven that he’s the best that’s ever done it.”
As for how his team performed on Sunday, Belichick thought it was a strong all-around performance by the Patriots.
“Good team win for us here on the road,” Bill Belichick said. “We got a lot of contributions from everybody — offense, defense, special teams. We played some complementary football. We were able to make plays on defense or in the kicking game and then convert those on offense. It was good. The players really competed hard.”
