Bill Belichick is in town, and you know that means:
The scowl, the beady eyes and the hoodie with the sleeves chopped off.
There's one other thing, too, and that's the impressive success since he took over the Patriots in 2000.
Belichick has been to the Super Bowl six times, winning four. That ties him with Chuck Noll for the lead among coaches in the Super Bowl era. (Vince Lombardi won three NFL championships in addition to the first two Super Bowls).
So does Belichick belong in the discussion with Noll among the all-time greats? Absolutely. In fact, the case can be made that what Belichick has accomplished has been even more impressive.
The game has changed radically since Noll took over the Steelers in 1969. The staff for his first Super Bowl included eight assistants, counting specialists for flexibility and weight lifting. There were only six assistants coaching purely football matters. Nobody had the title of offensive coordinator.
Quarterbacks had play-calling responsibility then, too, which is one reason Terry Bradshaw didn't fully claim the starting job until his fifth season.
These days, it's a task to fit the entire coaching staff into one photo frame. Mike Tomlin has 16 assistants.
The Steelers' success in the 1970s basically comes down to simple math. They drafted exceptionally well for six years (1969 to 1974) and that translated into six incredibly successful seasons (1974 to '79).
After the Steelers won their fourth Super Bowl on Jan. 20, 1980, Noll coached for 12 more seasons. He was 93-91 with just four playoff appearances.
As great as the Steelers were in the '70s, they won with the same group of players.
Tom Brady has quarterbacked all four of the Patriots' Super Bowl victories, but the supporting cast has constantly evolved. Troy Brown was the leading receiver on the first Super Bowl team, and Antowain Smith was the leading rusher. They were long gone by the fourth Super Bowl, as were defensive standouts Richard Seymour, Willis McGinest, Tedy Bruschi and Lawyer Milloy.
If you're looking to slap Belichick's record with an asterisk for his Spygate cheating conviction, that's fair. The Patriots were guilty of illegally taping other teams' defensive signals to gain an edge.
Belichick was fined $500,000, and the team was fined an additional $250,000 and lost its first-round draft pick.
But there are a lot of people who will argue the Steelers were at the forefront of the steroid trend in the NFL. There were a lot of mysterious weight and muscle gains and at least one player, Jim Clack, admitted on the record that he had bulked up with laboratory help.
Noll retired at 60. Belichick is 64 and shows no signs of slowing down. There may be another Super Bowl in the future because he's kept the Patriots formidable through all the changes.
Belichick is already in Noll's class, and another Super Bowl trophy would advance him to a different level.
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--LATE BLOOMING LOVE
Cleveland is crazy for the Indians, who are in the World Series for just the second time since 1948.
But that didn't translate into a lot of business during the regular season.
The Indians' attendance was 1,591,667, an average of 19,650 per date. The Pirates' attendance fell by more than 200,000, but it was still 2,249,201, an average of 27,768.
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--IS TWO TOO MANY?
The Penguins' signing of Matt Murray to a contract extension seems to guarantee Marc-Andre Fleury's future is elsewhere.
There's no need to do anything immediately, though. One of the lessons from last season should be the value of having two quality goalies for a Stanley Cup run.
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--COLD FACTS
Temperatures are forecast to be in the 40s when the first pitch of the World Series is thrown in Cleveland on Tuesday night.
This gives MLB a chance to market its line of officially licensed parkas and ski hats.
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