I'd prefer Belichick speak about me than Easterbrook

Gregg Easterbrook is worthy of respect for his many skills and accomplishments. But, as he paints Belichick to be the Darth Vader of the NFL, I can't help but think that he sounds worse than the guy he's demonizing.

Easterbrook writes:

Victory seems to give Bill Belichick no joy, and defeat throws him into fury. Belichick and the rest of the top of the Patriots' organization continue to refuse to answer questions about what was in the cheating tapes -- and generally, you refuse to answer questions if you have something to hide. The team has three Super Bowl triumphs, yet its players regularly whine about not being revered enough. The team's star, Tom Brady, is a smirking sybarite who dates actresses and supermodels but whose public charity appearances are infrequent. That constant smirk on Brady's face reminds one of Dick Cheney; people who smirk are fairly broadcasting the message, "I'm hiding something." The Patriots seem especially creepy at this point because we still don't know whether they have told the full truth about the cheating scandal -- or even whether they really have stopped cheating.

Contrast this with what Belichick says about his upcoming opponent, Joe Gibbs:

Q: Could you talk about Joe Gibbs' stature in this game?

BB: Hall of Fame. He's a Hall of Fame coach. He's already been recognized for his career to…whatever his last year was there. '93, was it?

Q: '92.

BB: '92, OK. Yeah, '92. Fortunately he's come back to tack on more to that, and he has a good team this year. He's really one of the…I wouldn't say the founders, but a coach that took the one-back offense and took it to a level far above what it was when he started there at Washington in…it would have been '81, right?

* * *

BB: We all make mistakes - me more than anybody. I've made plenty of them. You try to learn from them and move on. It's the same thing I would tell a player. Look, the players that played yesterday, it's not the first time they've made a mistake in a game, any of them. Every player, there's always things they can do better. They all made mistakes. There's all things that they can learn from them. We're all in that category. That's how it is every week. That's how you get better - You learn from your mistakes and you move on.

Q: Do you have a World Series prediction?

BB: No. My focus is on Washington and that's where it needs to be. They're a good football team coming in here. They'll be ready to go and I have a lot of respect for Joe Gibbs and his staff -Gregg Williams, all of them. They're tough. They've won four and they could have easily won a couple more, so we'll have our hands full. That's all I'm worried about right now.

Sure, Belichick is scandalous like the biblical David, and not nearly as poetic. But who will cut the head off Goliath? As much as I respect Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy, I'd rather Tom Brady and Bill to represent me on the gridiron front.

I can't help but think that Easterbrook is football's Salieri, with nothing but fumes over Belichick as Mozart. Which guy is complaining (and getting paid to do it) while the other guy is getting it done?

Patriots are favored over the Colts to go to the Superbowl at 2:1.