Sports of The Times
By MICHAEL POWELL
PHOENIX — So you put the questions to the offensive and defensive coordinators whose fate it was to have spent the two weeks before the Super Bowl in a more or less constant state of sleepless agitation:
How far do other teams’ tricksters crawl into your cranium? Do you let such worries take nest in your cerebral cortex, the better to devise a counter, or do you try to banish the thoughts altogether?
Josh McDaniels, the crew-cut offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots, whose own innovations and tricks inflict so much pain on other teams, smiled. That way lies madness.
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His therapist? This is an N.F.L. presser?
The master of unsettlement was next up. Belichick shrugged, and shrugged again. “I’ve had a couple ups and downs,” he said. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Mind game meets real game Sunday.
Email: powellm@nytimes.com
A version of this article appears in print on February 1, 2015, on page SP1 of the New York edition with the headline: Sleight of Hand Isn’t Important, Until It Is. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
