Belichick: Brady is a difficult player to coach

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By Tom E. Curran
CSNNE.com Patriots InsiderFollow @tomecurran
FOXBORO -- Bill Belichick sat down with Mike Lombardi of the NFL Network this week to talk about the upcoming season.

The NFLN folks were good enough to forward over a pair of Brady-related quotes from the interview which will air on NFL GameDay Morning this Sunday at 9:00 AM ET.

Lombardi asked Belichick about Brady's comment earlier this year that he hadn't gotten over the loss to the Jets in the 2010 postseason.

Im not sure how many losses Ive ever gotten over," Belichick replied. "I remember a couple of games I lost in high school and Im still not over those losses either. When you put a lot into the game, the losses stay with you. Thats part of sports. You can never get them back, but it just drives you a little harder next time.

Having been in a losing Patriots locker room and seeing how visibly angry Belichick can be, that's not hard to believe.

After the 2005 playoff loss to Denver, I remember clearly him walking through the locker room, his face a mask of focused, quiet anger. You saw it in 2006 after the AFC Championship loss to the Colts in his postgame interview. You saw it again after Super Bowl 42. Belichick empties his soul into these games -- which may not be the healthiest approach -- and the convalescence from a season-ending loss is ongoing.

Lombardi asked Belichick about working 1-on-1 with Brady as was seen in "Bill Belichick: A Football Life."

"Tom and I get together every week and talk about the preparation for the team were playing," Belichick explained. "Hes a tough player to coach because hes so well prepared; hes seen all of the games, hes seen all of the plays. You cant walk into a meeting with Tom Brady and only have watched half of the film because hell bring up things that hes seen in other games. You dont want to be sitting there saying I didnt watch this, or I didnt watch that.

In a story I did for NBCSports.com prior to the 2009 season, Belichick told me the same thing but elaborated a bit more.

"You have to be better prepared than he is because he sets such a high standard with his preparation and his level of understanding, Belichick told me. As a coach, youre competing with that, trying to exceed that or else, what are you doing (for him)?

You dont want to go into a meeting with him and say, Well, this team didnt hit a lot of outcuts against (this defense). Hell turn around and say, Well, in the Green Bay game last year they did. They hit five of them. Youll want to have seen that game and make sure you know what happened so that hes not telling you what happened when you should be telling him what happened.

Should be an interesting watch.

Tom E. Curran can be reached at tcurran@comcastsportsnet.com. Follow Tom on Twitter at http:twitter.comtomecurran

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