honyock
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With the days inching by till training camp, here's a story I've wanted to post here for awhile. It's about Ernie Adams, a Patriots employee and Bill Belichick's trusted advisor who may be the most mysterious figure in the history of the NFL. This may have been talked about here in the past but I don't remember seeing anything about him, and his story is too weird and fascinating, and probably too important to the Patriots success, to not get a little attention.
I heard about Adams briefly on a talk show awhile back and have been reading about him on and off for the past few months. I have no fondness for New England, but his story is so strange that I've gotten intrigued with the guy
He's listed by the Pat's as their "Director of Football Research", but beyond that and a small bio, no one knows much about him or knows exactly what he does for the organization. Not players, coaches, apparently from office personnel, team beat writers, no one except Adams and Belichick. The players call him "Coach Adams", but when asked about him, they have no idea what he does. As safety Patrick Chung said, “No clue what he does. No clue at all. Maybe he’s an undercover genius.” Once during a Patriots team film session, a player put up a slide with Adams picture. The caption read, "What does this man do?" Everyone laughed, but no one had an answer.
Two things are almost for sure, he's as close to a human computer as the league may have ever seen, and he completely has Belichick's trust and ear. As an ESPN article about him put it, "On game day, he's in the press box with a headset on, running numbers, computing percentages and, some around the league insinuate, overseeing more insidious operations." He reportedly came up with the game plan to neutralize Marshall Faulk in Super Bowl XXXVI. Another snippet from the ESPN article, "After the Spygate incident, one former Patriots insider said a videotape of signals wouldn't help the other 31 teams nearly as much because they wouldn't have Ernie Adams there to quickly analyze and process the information."
A little more from the ESPN article: "A longtime NFL watcher compares him to "Q", James Bond's master of espionage and gadgetry. Author David Halberstam called him "Belichick's Belicheck". No other team has anyone like him on it's payroll. And yet, save for football insiders, he is virtually unknown."
He and Belichick have known each other since prep school, where Adams was already obsessed with film study and the ins and outs of game strategy and tactics. Adams went on to Northwestern and starting as a student manager, and so impressed the coaches with his knowledge of film, that by his sophomore year was an assistant coach. He later coached for the Giants and convinced Ray Perkins to hire his friend Belichick.
He was already becoming a mystery to those around him - he'd just study film all day long, no one knew anything else about him. One thing that his players said, from his first "coaching" stop on, was that he could consistently see and notice things on film that no one else could find, and that his knowledge about the game was savant-like. He knew everything. This was already apparent even when he was still a freshman at Northwestern.
He left the Giants and went to work on Wall Street as bond trader. No one knows who he worked for, what he did or how successful he was, although the persistent rumor was that he made his fortune there. When Belichick was hired as HC by Clevelend, he brought Adams back to the NFL as his…well, his something.
No one there knew what he did. Browns owner Art Modell once said, "I'll pay anyone here $10,000 if they can tell me what Ernie Adams does." When Belichek was fired, he went back to the investment world until Belichick brought him back when the Patriots hired him as HC.
Adams is rumored to have huge power on personnel decisions, and draft day strategy. He supposedly runs the team value chart for trades. But no one really knows.
He is in New England's coaching box during games, and is reportedly in direct communication with Belichick via headset. It's been rumored at times that he's the only person in Belichick's hear during games. But no one really knows.
He's been rumored to have been involved with, or the mastermind of, or the tape-dissector and analyst behind Spygate, the one person who crunched all the tape and info and fed strategy to Belichick. But no one really knows. He's been credited with the Patriots ability to make halftime and in-game adjustments.
Adams is almost completely in the shadows. He's only given two interviews in is football career, once to a Northwestern alumni magazine and once to an author who was writing a bio on Belichick. People around the team say he is the one person that Belichick has absolute trust in, and both are notoriously secretive, so the real story of what he does will probably never be told.
He reportedly has a photographic memory and is the answer man for Patriots players on any questions about league rules, league policy, league history, anything NFl or football related, all questions answered on the spot, no "I'll look it up and get back to you". He and Belichick have been at the forefront of reaching out beyond the football world to bring in mathematicians and statisticians to determine when to throw challenge flags, go for it or punt on 4th down, or when to try two point conversions. The stories are that Belichick consults with him during games on these on-the-spot decisions (as an example, when Belichick decided to try to convert a late-game fourth down in a big regular season game against the Colts a few years back that famously got stopped short).
After the Spygate incident, one former Patriots insider said a videotape of signals wouldn't help the other 31 teams nearly as much because they wouldn't have Ernie Adams there to quickly analyze and process the information.
There is much more online. Here is the ESPN article, which is very good and the most detailed look into his life and his role with the team that I've found: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=adams
and another good article by Les Carpenter of Yahoo Sports: http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=lc-carpenter_ernie_adams_patriots_adviser_belichick020212
I heard about Adams briefly on a talk show awhile back and have been reading about him on and off for the past few months. I have no fondness for New England, but his story is so strange that I've gotten intrigued with the guy
He's listed by the Pat's as their "Director of Football Research", but beyond that and a small bio, no one knows much about him or knows exactly what he does for the organization. Not players, coaches, apparently from office personnel, team beat writers, no one except Adams and Belichick. The players call him "Coach Adams", but when asked about him, they have no idea what he does. As safety Patrick Chung said, “No clue what he does. No clue at all. Maybe he’s an undercover genius.” Once during a Patriots team film session, a player put up a slide with Adams picture. The caption read, "What does this man do?" Everyone laughed, but no one had an answer.
Two things are almost for sure, he's as close to a human computer as the league may have ever seen, and he completely has Belichick's trust and ear. As an ESPN article about him put it, "On game day, he's in the press box with a headset on, running numbers, computing percentages and, some around the league insinuate, overseeing more insidious operations." He reportedly came up with the game plan to neutralize Marshall Faulk in Super Bowl XXXVI. Another snippet from the ESPN article, "After the Spygate incident, one former Patriots insider said a videotape of signals wouldn't help the other 31 teams nearly as much because they wouldn't have Ernie Adams there to quickly analyze and process the information."
A little more from the ESPN article: "A longtime NFL watcher compares him to "Q", James Bond's master of espionage and gadgetry. Author David Halberstam called him "Belichick's Belicheck". No other team has anyone like him on it's payroll. And yet, save for football insiders, he is virtually unknown."
He and Belichick have known each other since prep school, where Adams was already obsessed with film study and the ins and outs of game strategy and tactics. Adams went on to Northwestern and starting as a student manager, and so impressed the coaches with his knowledge of film, that by his sophomore year was an assistant coach. He later coached for the Giants and convinced Ray Perkins to hire his friend Belichick.
He was already becoming a mystery to those around him - he'd just study film all day long, no one knew anything else about him. One thing that his players said, from his first "coaching" stop on, was that he could consistently see and notice things on film that no one else could find, and that his knowledge about the game was savant-like. He knew everything. This was already apparent even when he was still a freshman at Northwestern.
He left the Giants and went to work on Wall Street as bond trader. No one knows who he worked for, what he did or how successful he was, although the persistent rumor was that he made his fortune there. When Belichick was hired as HC by Clevelend, he brought Adams back to the NFL as his…well, his something.
No one there knew what he did. Browns owner Art Modell once said, "I'll pay anyone here $10,000 if they can tell me what Ernie Adams does." When Belichek was fired, he went back to the investment world until Belichick brought him back when the Patriots hired him as HC.
Adams is rumored to have huge power on personnel decisions, and draft day strategy. He supposedly runs the team value chart for trades. But no one really knows.
He is in New England's coaching box during games, and is reportedly in direct communication with Belichick via headset. It's been rumored at times that he's the only person in Belichick's hear during games. But no one really knows.
He's been rumored to have been involved with, or the mastermind of, or the tape-dissector and analyst behind Spygate, the one person who crunched all the tape and info and fed strategy to Belichick. But no one really knows. He's been credited with the Patriots ability to make halftime and in-game adjustments.
Adams is almost completely in the shadows. He's only given two interviews in is football career, once to a Northwestern alumni magazine and once to an author who was writing a bio on Belichick. People around the team say he is the one person that Belichick has absolute trust in, and both are notoriously secretive, so the real story of what he does will probably never be told.
He reportedly has a photographic memory and is the answer man for Patriots players on any questions about league rules, league policy, league history, anything NFl or football related, all questions answered on the spot, no "I'll look it up and get back to you". He and Belichick have been at the forefront of reaching out beyond the football world to bring in mathematicians and statisticians to determine when to throw challenge flags, go for it or punt on 4th down, or when to try two point conversions. The stories are that Belichick consults with him during games on these on-the-spot decisions (as an example, when Belichick decided to try to convert a late-game fourth down in a big regular season game against the Colts a few years back that famously got stopped short).
After the Spygate incident, one former Patriots insider said a videotape of signals wouldn't help the other 31 teams nearly as much because they wouldn't have Ernie Adams there to quickly analyze and process the information.
There is much more online. Here is the ESPN article, which is very good and the most detailed look into his life and his role with the team that I've found: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=adams
and another good article by Les Carpenter of Yahoo Sports: http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=lc-carpenter_ernie_adams_patriots_adviser_belichick020212
