WHAT BEATS AN ACE? THIS GUY

nothing more than an acknowledgment of a new reality. But in truth he had not changed at all—he remained what he always was and always would be, a man determined to treat his men as men. That’s what made him a players’ coach, and that was his moral foundation. The only difference is that he was learning what a coach like Belichick has always accepted as part of the deal: The only moral argument that matters in football is winning.

I DONÕT MEAN to stalk him. But I do. During Pro Bowl week, a resort hotel in Orlando has been given over to the NFL and its minions, including players and their families. It offers them privacy, behind a gate and a checkpoint, but it also offers credentialed journalists an opportunity to see Pro Bowlers at play and at peace, and I take it. After leaving my car with the valet, I walk through the grand entrance, only to bump into Mike Tomlin, very nearly literally. As I’m going in, he is going out, and for a moment we stand face-to-face. He is wearing a gray pullover sweater and, yes, a hat that shadows his eyes—but it’s a driver’s cap, in a snazzy gray that matches his sweater. His wife is with him, and they are going out to dinner or for a night on the town.

“Coach!” I hear myself exclaim.

“How you doing?” he says, and hustles outside to wait for his car. I lurk in the lobby for a while to see what kind of car it is. But he disappears before I get a chance to see, and I find myself witnessing a stream of famous football players, along with their wives and children, heading to another part of the building, down the stairs. I follow, and discover a mass of them, waiting to board tour buses for Universal Studios, which is open to them and exclusively them from 8 ’til midnight. But Tomlin is not going with them—of course he isn’t. He has never played the fool, and he’s never let anybody get famous at his expense, and he’s sure as hell not going to scream on someone else’s roller coaster. From the start of his life in the public eye, he has reserved for himself the right of refusal, and both then and now he has exercised it with a flourish.

The next day, I see him again at practice. He’s wearing the same uniform he wore the day before, a coach who believes in keeping things black and white, dressed in a white jersey and loose black pants, flapping in the wind. On my first day in Orlando, I’d asked Villanueva whether anything had changed after the loss to the Jaguars, and he’d answered, “The only thing that’s changed is that we lost. You wouldn’t be asking that question if we’d won.” But they didn’t win, and how big a change that represents can be seen right now, with Tomlin, a man who coaches as if everything is at stake, sentenced to coach a game that means nothing at all, a parody of a game that shows what football looks like stripped of the sheen of war. He has nothing to lose, and neither do I, so when the honk of a horn signals the end of practice, I approach him once again. He sees me coming and frowns as though I’ve stepped on his shoes.

“Coach, whenever I talk to your players, they tell me about your maxims and slogans—you know, ‘The standard is the standard.’ So I’ve been wondering if you might have one for civilians. I’m wondering if you might have one for reporters—for me.”

I am hoping that I can get a “Don’t be that guy” out of him. But of course by now I am that guy, so he stops short and for once faces me squarely, with a pained expression. “You took me by surprise, man,” he says, without intending a compliment, and then he shrugs. “I got nothing for you.”

But that’s not quite right.

I’ve asked him for what he doesn’t want to give; he’s given me what I don’t want to get. There has been a misunderstanding, a question asked and answered in two different languages, but that doesn’t mean that nothing of value has been exchanged. He has given me a look at his face, which is not even close to a unified field but rather a face that has to choose between refusal and reconciliation, between self-protection and authenticity, in every flip of the coin. He is even generous enough to give me the glare, before he gives me his back, and is gone.

“HE’S NOT A PERSON WHO WANTS TO DIVIDE. HE WANTS TO UNIFY IN EVERYTHING HE DOES.”

OFFENSIVE TACKLE ALEJANDRO VILLA NUEVA

The Belichick Way is easy to define. The Tomlin Way? Much harder to pinpoint—just how Tomlin prefers it.