Here’s a great excerpt from the Sporting News where Willie McGinest explains one aspect of why Bill Belichick is so successful.

Wrote McGinest: “We were practicing taking a safety back in 2003. Bill put it in for the case where we’d get pinned back in our own territory late in the fourth quarter. We’d take a safety with our punt team, then punt it away on the free kick, pin the other team back and put in our 2-minute offense to win the game.

“So we went over it in practice and most of us are thinking, ‘Wait a minute. If we’re pinned back, the last thing we want to do is take a safety.’ We thought in that scenario time would just run out, so what we’d really do was punt.

“As luck would have it, that very week, that situation came up in the Denver game. We’re pinned back to the goal line, and Bill calls for it. We take the safety and free kick. And we get a great kick, it goes 50 yards in the air, and the returner misjudged it, so it rolled another 15 yards. So instead of having the ball near midfield, they’re pinned, and we stop them.

“The offense gets the ball, rushes down the field and we score to win the game. It was exactly what we practiced. … Bill would present these crazy situations and say, ‘This may not come up. But we can’t panic if it does. If you do your job and do the little things, you’ll win more than you lose.’

“That’s his attention to detail. The way he’d scout other teams, we didn’t have to do a million things. He would pick two or three things a week we specifically needed to do. And as was the case during that Denver game, it seemed like he was always 100 percent on point.”

Just a quick look at the biggest questions the Patriots have this offseason.  Their biggest problem last year was defense, especially on third down and in the red zone. In addition to the two defensive backs they drafted last year, Wilhite and Wheatley, they’ve signed Leigh Bodden and Shawn Springs, and drafted Darius Butler and Pat Chung.  Between these 6 guys, they should have an improved defensive backfield, but exactly how it will stack up and how they’ll perform is still a question. The next question on defense is at linebacker.  At inside linebacker, Tedy Bruschi has lost a step, and they may need Gary Guyton or someone else to step into that role more alongside Jerod Mayo.  At ouside linebacker, they need more pass rush, which can be hard with Mike Vrabel gone.  Right now the top prospects opposite Adalius Thomas appear to be Pierre Woods or Tully Banta-Cain.  I still have hopes for Shawn Crable if he ever comes of PUP.  But they may need to trade for someone.

On offense, the Patriots should be improved with the return of Tom Brady.  The other area that’s been greatly upgraded is tight end, with the addition of Chris Baker and Alex Smith.  The Patriots lost Jabar Gaffney in free agency and look to fill in his WR spot with either Joey Galloway or Greg Lewis, which should be interesting.  Finally, I still worry about the Patriots offensive line. It’s largely the same as it was in the Super Bowl when they allowed a lot of pressure on Brady, and last year when they gave up a lot of sacks on Cassel. One spot to watch is rookie Sebastian Vollmer, who can step in at either tackle spot.