Tom Rock's post on New York Giants | Latest updates on Sulia

If you like long, detailed, historically-based Bill Belichick answers that involve the Giants, here's another one:

The Pats coach today was asked for an example of a team changing its identity in the playoffs and he immediately reached back to the 1990 Giants: "I’m not saying this is right or wrong. You asked a historical question so I can give you a historical answer. I can tell you that in 1990, when I was with the Giants, we played Chicago in the first playoff game. We played a 4-3 defense. They had a certain style of play that we felt was more conducive to that. The next week we played San Francisco, we played a 3-4 defense and that was predicated on what we thought would be best to play the 49ers that week. Then the following week we played Buffalo and we played a 2-4 nickel, 3-3 nickel, whatever you want to call it, depending on what part of the game you were in. I’d say that was a different style of defense. Is that trying to be creative? I don’t know. It’s trying to win the game. It’s trying to do what you felt like you had to do to match up against those particular teams – Chicago, San Francisco and Buffalo in that particular year that were very, very different. Playing Chicago wasn’t like playing San Francisco and playing San Francisco wasn’t like playing Buffalo. There were just different matchups, different style offenses, different personnel groups on the field. I think at this time of the season you do what you need to do to win one game. You don’t worry about your system, you don’t worry about playing time or how many guys do this or this guy does that. You worry about what you need to do to win the game – that’s what we’re here for. You put the best you have out there to do the best you can against whatever it is you’re facing – offensively, defensively whatever it is – and you try to make that work. Sometimes that means it’s the same thing, sometimes it’s doing what you’ve been doing, sometimes it might be doing something differently. I’m not saying that’s the right way to do it, I’m just saying that’s what happened in that particular year. Had we played somebody other than Chicago, San Francisco or Buffalo, I’m sure you’d be looking at a bunch of different chapters in a book but we didn’t, that’s the way it was. I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s the right thing or the wrong thing to do but that’s what we did."