“He’s really built a complete program here,” Belichick said to Savage.
Belichick’s Browns established what they called three “critical factors” for every position, the non-negotiable criteria players needed in order to perform the jobs coaches will ask of them. Cornerbacks, for example, needed to be able to tackle, play the ball in the deep part of the field and play man-to-man. They added in height/weight/speed preferences: 6-feet, 180 pounds, run less than 4.5. “The greatest impact for me, even though we stayed friends for a long time, was systemically learning about evaluating personnel for four years,” Saban says.
Look up and down the Alabama roster, and nearly every cornerback fits this rubric. Belichick, in putting together a roster under a salary cap, has to compromise in some areas (height is one), but he too adheres to the critical factors theory. When the Browns relocated, becoming the Ravens, Ozzie Newsome and Savage turned this same idea of three critical factors into “Triangles of Success.”