FOXBORO -- Willie McGinest will be inducted into the Hall at Patriots Place on Wednesday as one of the best players in franchise history. He's a three-time Super Bowl champion, and he set the record for most postseason sacks, but Bill Belichick's opinion of what made McGinest great -- re-iterated in a press conference on Tuesday -- was based on more than record-book accomplishments.
"Really competitive guy, tough, team-oriented," Belichick said. "Winning was really important to him; winning more than personal stats. He took losing hard, which I think that’s a good thing, more than personal accomplishments. Great example for younger players. He had kind of that nice balance of being able to talk to a guy, but also you just watch him do it and that was a good example. It wasn’t really all one or the other."
And if a player every disagreed with McGinest, Belichick remembered, there was a level of respect -- or fear -- that the 6-foot-5, 270-pound McGinest carried with him in the locker room.
"Nobody would mess with Willie," Belichick said. "Nobody. He was the most, I’d say in the time that I’ve been here, there is maybe one player, I’d put him up there as the guy you just don’t want to cross him. If it got to that point, it’s better to back off than get into it with him. He was very well respected, as he should be. He was great athlete, great player, great teammate, versatile guy, [on] championship teams. He had a great career."
Belichick worked with McGinest as an assistant under Bill Parcells in 1996. Belichick became McGinest's head coach in 2000, and the versatile edge defender with the knack for the big play reminded Belichick of another championship player he had coached as an assistant with the Giants in the 1980s.
"I’d say [Lawrence] Taylor was a little bit like that at New York," Belichick said of McGinest's ability to rise to the occasion of a big moment. "I kind of learned from coaching Lawrence that Lawrence is really smart and he played hard, he was really tough, but he had a little bit of extra gas in his tank for the critical plays in the game. So, we can all sit there and watch a game and here it is, we’re ahead, there’s not much time left, it’s third down, this is going to be one of the plays of the game, well that’s when you’d get one of his best plays. Lawrence always had a little bit left for, and he would be able to know, we need this play to win this game, or here are three or four plays in this game, and you were going to get his best on those plays for sure.
"There may have been a couple other ones that could’ve been better. And Willie was kind of like that, too. I remember talking to Willie about that, having that same conversation, and I think as a coach, as a player, as a fan, you sit there and watch the game, you can feel this is a big play coming up here. And those kinds of guys – McGinest and Taylor – they had that ability to reach down at that point in time and give their best and in a lot of cases make the difference. He had a lot of those plays, and not just rushing the passer either – against the run, blowing up a short yardage play where somebody else ends up making it. So, I think there’s a little bit of that gamesmanship maybe is the right word – but knowing this is it, and I’m going to reach down, I’ve got a little bit extra and here it is."
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Belichick met McGinest when McGinest was coming out of the University of Southern California in 1994. Parcells drafted McGinest with the No. 4 overall pick that year -- meaning Belichick, the head coach in Cleveland, didn't have the opportunity at No. 9 -- despite the fact that McGinest was a difficult player to evaluate.
"I go back all the way to USC with Willie," Belichick said. "I still remember in that spring meeting with him out there in their big team meeting room and watching film with him. He had kind of a little bit of an interesting career there at Southern Cal with Coach [John] Robinson where in his senior year it seemed like they played him in a different spot every week. One time he was a defensive end, then he was an outside linebacker, he played some middle linebacker, sometimes they moved him inside. They moved him around to a lot of different positons trying to free him up, and you could see his versatility and his athleticism and toughness and playmaking. But it was kind of hard to evaluate him because he was kind of doing something different every week. He didn’t really get into a real good groove there.
"And then of course, Bill [Parcells] drafted him here. [I] coached him in 1996, so that would have been like his third year. He was kind of an outside linebacker and then in 1996, we used him really as a defensive end in a four-man scheme, although he still played both. But again, I think that speaks to his versatility – outside linebacker to defensive end, then we had him playing outside linebacker for us in 2000, 2001, in those years. Versatile player."
McGinest's football sense has stood the test of time, Belichick said. He could show today's players any number of McGinest's tapes, and it would be beneficial to them. Belichick explained that McGinest was in a similar class to Troy Brown and Rodney Harrison in that regard.
In fact, toward the end of Tuesday's training camp practice, Belichick had McGinest speak to players huddled around him.
"There are probably 100 things you could show them that are good," Belichick said. "It depends on the player, the situation and what point you’re trying to make. But yeah, I mean, those guys are great for a reason and if you can pass that on to the next generation somehow, yeah, we’ll do it. We’ll find any way to teach that’s beneficial. We’ll try to use it, you bet."
McGinest's Hall induction will begin at 5 p.m. in the NRG Plaza outside the Hall at Patriot Place. It is free and open to the public. You can watch our coverage of the ceremony live on Comcast SportsNet New England.