First, like Jackson and Madden, Belichick trusts his men to be men, and treats them as such, and they respond with loyalty in kind. Second, he’s smart enough to appoint an elite sub-team within his bigger team who report the temperature of the locker room to him. Third, he strives to simplify, right down to the binary if need be – as in, “Look at the other team’s formation, wherein they’re going to either do this, or they’re going to do that.” Even if you’re only slightly smarter than a bag of hammers, you’ll be right more than half the time.