Bill Belichick and Luck (not Andrew)

Thanks to Al and Dan for inviting me to blog here for a bit.  I've always been fascinated by the role of luck in success, and I'm now reading Dan Kahneman's great book where he explains how people  greatly underestimate the impact of luck.  And I absolutely detest the New England Patriots (for various  reasons not worth detailing here).  So with the Super Bowl coming up on Sunday, I've been thinking about the role of luck in their 10 year run of tremendous success.

Entering the 2001 season, Bill Belichick was coming off of 5-11 season, and he had gone 36-44 with 1 winning season and 1 playoff victory in 5 seasons as head coach of the Cleveland Browns before he was fired by Cleveland.  The Patriots lost the first game of the season to the Bengals at home and was down late in the 4th quarter at home to the Jets.  At that point, Belichick was a career 41-57 coach (counting the Jets game as a loss, which it eventually was) and was well on his way to getting fired by New England.  Stigmatized as a two-time loser, Belichick would be hard-pressed to get another head coaching job in the NFL.

But then, at what looked like the lowest of the low for Belichick, a stroke of unbelievable luck:  late in the Jets game, Mo Lewis obliterates QB Drew Bledsoe on the sidelines, effectively ending his season.  In trots unknown backup QB named Tom Brady, a 6th round draft pick who had played sparingly at Michigan, and the rest, as they say, was history.  Brady leads the Patriots to squeak into the playoffs, where they get by Oakland as a result of the Tuck Rule play (another stroke of incredible luck) and crazy-clutch field goals in the snow.  More clutch field goals follow in the Super Bowl, and Belichick is anointed a genius.  (The Patriots got another lucky break when the NFL rescheduled game 2 as a result of the terrorist attacks on September 11.  Instead of that game being played during their early season doldrums with Bledsoe at the helm, it was played at the very end of the regular season when they were on a roll led by Brady.  One more loss by the Patriots and they don't make the playoffs.) 

You can't argue that Belichick's brilliance caused him to play Brady.  This was not a voluntary choice; Bledsoe was done.  Likewise, you can't contend that Belichick's brilliance caused him to select Brady in the 6th round.  If he had any idea at all how good Brady would become, he wouldn't have risked losing him by picking him so late. 

It's quite possible that, but for Mo Lewis's hit on Bledsoe, Belichick is a linebackers coach  right now instead of leading his team into its 5th Super Bowl in 11 seasons.  Yet people seem to think that a successful person's success is preordained and completely attributable to the person's talent and effort.  This systematic underestimation of the role of luck seems pervasive, and it has important  ramifications for the law.  I'll discuss some of these in later posts.

Comments

[Alfred Brophy]

I'm guessing there are some parallels between this story and the careers of law professors.

[Jarod Bona]

As a long-suffering Vikings fan, I am indifferent about the Patriots, so I think I can be objective. I agree that there were instances of "luck" that year, but I think that he has also demonstrated his ability as a head coach over the many years since that time. I doubt that "luck" accounts for a significant part of that (as we would expect that "luck" tends to even out over time). His team has had continued success over many years in a league structure that is obsessed with parity. How much of that is him, versus other factors (like Tom Brady)? That is hard to determine. Perhaps we can do a regression analysis. But unscientifically, I have seen him come up with game plans against a team that the league ends up copying for the rest of the year. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I understand that he also has a disproportionate number of undrafted players on his roster--perhaps evidence of good coaching, or at least good talent evaluation.

Finally, often overlooked, I think, is the fact that coaches can learn and improve. As a young head coach with Cleveland for several years, he was likely able to really develop as a coach. No matter the profession, some people are better than others at learning from their mistakes and successes.

[Gregg Polsky]

Jarod,

My point is not that Bill Belichick isn't a talented coach. I think he is. My point is that, if Mo Lewis decides to let up on that sideline hit, it's quite possible that Belichick would be considered a failed head coach rather than the greatest coach of all time.

[Kevin Jon Heller]

Enjoyed the post, but I have one question: how exactly is it "luck" for officials to correctly apply a rule? (The Tuck Rule, in this case.) The rule might be dumb, but the officials were simply enforcing it as written. If that's luck, then the concept of luck has no meaning.

[Gregg Polsky]

Kevin,

Thanks for the comment. You're right that the Tuck Rule play might not be a great example of luck. Then again, the Patriots did benefit hugely from the obscure rule despite the fact that the purpose of the rule--to prevent balls that slipped out of the QB's hands when he tried to pump fake or pull the ball back mid-throw from being ruled a fumble--wasn't all at implicated in the play. This seems lucky to me.

But the Tuck Rule really isn't critical to my points: (1) that extremely successful people often (always?) have benefited from circumstances that were well beyond their control, and (2) that people (including the extremely successful ones) tend not to appreciate this.

[Calvin Massey]

"Luck is the residue of design." -- Branch Rickey