The great Bill Belichick admits that he still gets nervous before games

Bill Belichick is different. The success is on another level, of course. He also rarely breaks out of the cool, detached persona on the sideline. The Patriots score, and Belichick barely reacts.

If there was a prime example of “act like you’ve been there before,” it’s Belichick. Mostly because there’s nothing he hasn’t seen.

That’s why Belichick saying he still gets nervous for games, as he did Friday, was kind of surprising. It probably shouldn’t be — regardless of how he acts at press conferences he still is human, and it would be weird to not be nervous for a game like Sunday’s AFC championship game — but there was still something oddly reassuring about Belichick admitting that these are still big moments for him.

Bill Belichick: ‘There’s an anxiety’

Belichick was asked Friday, two days before his team plays the Kansas City Chiefs with a Super Bowl appearance on the line, if he still gets nervous for big games. He clarified that he gets nervous “every week,” because all the games count.

“Just let me know the next game that doesn’t matter so I can take that into account,” Belichick said, according to the team’s site, in a very Belichick-ian answer.

But then he opened up some.

“You want to go out there and do well. There’s an anxiety,” he said, according to the team’s site. “We all have things in the game that we have to do. You want to perform them well and not let your team down. Everybody’s counting on you to do your job. You’re counting on everybody else to do theirs. You don’t worry about everybody else; you just worry about doing what you can do and making sure you don’t screw up what you’re supposed to do and are responsible for because no one else can do that. That’s your job. We all have jobs to do and we all want to do them well.”

Again, this shouldn’t be groundbreaking news. But given that our perception of Belichick is that he’s practically a robot, it was enlightening.

Belichick’s legacy is secure

Belichick has a resume that is unmatched by any other coach. In the last 33 seasons, Belichick has appeared in 17 conference championship games, which doesn’t even seem possible.

His legacy is set, as a sure Hall of Famer and likely the greatest NFL coach of all time. Even if you hate the Patriots, arguing against that is foolish. The numbers don’t lie.

No matter how many games come and go, even after coaching in some of the greatest Super Bowls ever, Belichick still feels the butterflies. Maybe that’s part of what makes him great.

– – – – – – –

Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
Follow @YahooSchwab

Subscribe to The Yahoo Sports NFL Podcast
Apple Podcasts• Stitcher • Google Podcasts