People like Bill Belichick make worthwhile the entire, oft-thankless, oft-farcical, douchebag-attracting business of following sports closely, simply for the chance to watch genius at work and be revealed and apparent to all, with regularity. The best doctor in the world isn't celebrated because such things aren't measured; the best accountant is well-paid but anonymous, the best hedge fund manager praised one year and scorned (or indicted) the next. But Bill Belichick is on our TV screens week after week, fall after fall, alternating between making opponents look like blithering idiots, or taking the best shots from a good team and grinding it out to where you look up at the scoreboard in the 4th quarter and, lo and behold, his team is winning. His teams get handicapped in the draft, or kneecapped by the league, and he keeps right on watching with that analytical expression - occasionally smug, occasionally outraged - as his teams replace talent, reload, and repeat their mantras.
It's not just moment-to-moment entertainment, a great play or a great game that come around every season for just about every team. It's a philosophically- and intellectually-satisfying entertainment, a reminder that sometimes meritocracy is, in fact, all that it's cracked up to be. Pedro Martinez was both, but we only got 4 or 5 years to really appreciate his greatness that way. Belichick and Brady have given us 16 so far, plus a warm-up year. We really are blessed.