I definitely agree that playing for the Patriots isn’t for everyone. Tedy Bruschi calls it a “Football Academy” and it’s an environment where every last detail is about winning football games. If you’re not obsessed with being your best and being part of a team, you might not like it there.
For some guys, it’s cathartic to be in an environment like that. Many veterans enjoy being in a place where it is only about football after spending the first chunk of their careers in other franchises.
Belichick was raised at Navy and those are the kind of people and players he was around as a kid and I think that very much influences the kind of organization and players he wants.
A player like Spikes certainly marches to his own beat, and I loved watching him play. I’m not sure there was another defender, outside of maybe Talib, who was as good at one thing as Spikes was at destroying a opposing run game. But falling into line, sacrificing his desire to express himself, those kind of things just weren’t Spikes. Nothing against him, perhaps he’ll blossom even more when he can feel totally free.
But the fact is that when you put a team together of essentially “football nerds” they are very, very hard to beat. They are always well-prepared, don’t get rattled, and it takes a full game to beat them. A legit 60 minutes and nothing less. They’ll beat far more talented teams and they’ll come back on teams that let up once they have a 10-point lead.
We’ve seen it time and time again, with almost entirely different Patriots teams.
Almost every team wants to call themselves a team-first operation but very few really are. The Patriots definitely are.
How will Revis respond in that kind of environment? I’m not sure. It might be perfect for him. Or it might be too much. We’ll just have to let the season play out.