Patriots gaming
THE WORLD is filled with gurus and hucksters peddling the secrets of success to credulous executives. These consultants practice the second-oldest profession. Every boss going back to the pharaohs seems to have had a reader of dreams, a Rasputin, a Kissinger. The most rational way to dispense with the cult of the consultant is to study a proven model for successful leadership that has overcome long odds.
Which is why the performance of the New England Patriots in the National Football League draft merits the attention not only of fans but of anyone who ever wondered why some organizations succeed and others fail.
What the Pats have accomplished, winning three of the past four Super Bowls, is not supposed to happen. The NFL, being the world's only known socialist success story, seeks league-wide parity four ways: revenue sharing; a salary cap that is the same for all 32 franchises; a schedule that is meant to make things easy for the losers and hard for the winners; and -- most important this week end -- the inverted order of the draft, which awards the team with the worst record the highest pick and punishes the champs of the previous season with the last selection in all seven rounds.
These are the rigged conditions coach Bill Belichick and his player personnel chief Scott Pioli must overcome in the draft that begins at noon today and runs till Sunday's twilight. Last year, 31 million TV viewers watched the teams make their selections. All the top picks seem to have ability and promise, yet why do some fulfill their potential and others fade away within a season or two?
Luck is not the answer. Belichick and Pioli did not sculpt their three Super Bowl squads by following the herd. They do not subscribe to the two scouting services most other teams use. They do all their own scouting, they try to envision how a player may adapt to their system over the long haul, and they apply criteria peculiar to their Patriot philosophy. Qualities that others regard as intangible they define as tangible -- indeed, as crucial. Among these are intelligence, commitment, coachability, and a willingness to subordinate one's ego to the needs of the group. These were some of the tangible virtues they saw in quarterback Tom Brady when they drafted him in the sixth round five years ago, after 198 other players had been chosen.
New Englanders can only wonder how different things might have been if the Patriots' way of evaluating talent had been applied to the larcenous whiz kids at 
