A taste of Capers

By bringing in one of the NFL's brightest defensive minds, Bill Belichick believes his team's defense will benefit from . . .

(Globe Photo / Robert E. Klein) Familiarity with the Belichick style of a 3-4 defense has helped new coach Dom Capers make a smooth transition to the Patriots.

FOXBOROUGH - The Patriots' biggest offseason acquisition didn't play a down last season. He won't don the shoulder pads once this year. He's not a reclamation project from another team or a veteran looking to reboot his career under the operating system of coach Bill Belichick.

Nope. He's a soft-spoken native of Buffalo, Ohio, who loves coaching defense just as much as Belichick. Hired in February and given the title special assistant/secondary coach, Dom Capers is uncomfortable with the notion that he's the coaching equivalent of acquiring Randy Moss. But he could be.

The 58-year-old Capers, who has 22 years of NFL coaching experience, has twice been a head coach - with the Carolina Panthers (1995-98) and Houston Texans (2001-05) - and is regarded as one of the league's most successful defensive coordinators, could be to Belichick what Belichick was to Bill Parcells: a self-sufficient assistant and coaching confidant whose influence and impact goes well beyond his job title.

"He felt like Dom would really help," said former Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson, one of Belichick's closest friends in the coaching profession. "Any time you lose quality coaches it makes for a difficult transition. Bill has done an outstanding job making the transition with new coaches."

Coincidence or not, the Patriots haven't won a Super Bowl since defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel and offensive coordinator Charlie Weis left following the 2004 season, branching out from Belichick's tree to plant their own roots as the head coaches of the Cleveland Browns and the University of Notre Dame, respectively. Without Crennel and Weis, Belichick seemingly took on a more active role in both game-planning and in-game instruction for the offense and defense.

While the elevation of 32-year-old wunderkind Josh McDaniels to offensive coordinator and the avuncular 59-year-old Dean Pees to defensive coordinator when Eric Mangini joined the New York Jets after one season has to be considered a success, there is the tableau from Super Bowl XLII of Tom Brady being battered by the New York Giants defense and Belichick, with his back to the offense, furiously diagramming adjustments for the defense on a dry-erase board.

That's one of the reasons the Patriots parted ways with secondary coach Joel Collier and made the move for Capers, who was also courted by the Cowboys after a regime change in Miami left him free.

"I know Belichick felt he was spread a little bit thin last year, actually doing individual coaching more than being a head coach," said Johnson, now a Fox analyst. "And I think that with Capers coming in there as a defensive coach, I think it will help him oversee a little better than what he did even a year ago."

Capers and Belichick had never coached together, but they battled in the mid-1990s in the AFC Central, when Belichick was the head coach of the Browns from 1991-94 and Capers was the defensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1992-94.

Their coaching connection is former Dolphins coach and current Alabama coach Nick Saban, who served as Belichick's defensive coordinator in Cleveland, and started as a coaching assistant with Capers at Kent State in the 1970s.

Familiarity with Saban, who hired Capers as Miami's defensive coordinator in 2006, and the Belichick-style of 3-4 defense has helped Capers make the transition to the Patriots.

"Well, I think that probably most of the guys that come out of certain coaching trees, I think there are probably always a lot of similarities," said Capers. "You have a much better idea in terms of the system, the type of style, the organization, those types of things. Yeah, obviously that helped, having worked for Nick at Miami."

While the Dolphins were only 23d in the league in total defense last season as they endured a 1-15 season under Saban's successor, Cam Cameron, their pass defense was fourth in the league. In 2006 with Saban, Capers coaxed the Dolphins defense to a No. 4 rating in total defense, and Jason Taylor won NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors.

Capers was the last defensive coordinator to shut out Brady & Co. - Miami handed the Patriots a 21-0 loss on Dec. 10, 2006, also the last time New England lost a regular-season contest.

While both Belichick and Capers are considered masters of the 3-4, Capers is known to favor more of a blitzing, attacking style that won his Pittsburgh defenses the moniker of "Blitzburgh." However, former Steelers coach Bill Cowher, who hired Capers in 1992, said he doesn't think Belichick, Pees, and Capers will have any problems collaborating.

"Dom is real serious. He likes to focus every day on football. He dreams about it. He's a guy that is meticulous with detail," said Cowher. "He's a very even-keel guy. Attention to detail is his greatest strength. He is unbelievably prepared. I think with his experience and Bill's expertise, it is a very easy marriage from that standpoint."

Patriots players have noticed that attention to detail. Charged with guiding a secondary that includes two rookie cornerbacks, Terrence Wheatley and Jonathan Wilhite, Capers has repeatedly reviewed concepts and techniques, sometimes to the bemusement of veterans like Rodney Harrison.

"It's good for the young players. I guess it's good for everyone," said Harrison, who has quickly become a fan of Capers. "Of course the veterans, we hate meetings - at times. But he'll go over something. Then he'll go over it again, then he'll go over it again. It's like, 'OK, Dom, we got it.' But at the same time you can understand why he's going over it: just to make sure and reinforce that we have it. You can't say you're not prepared."

Harrison said he thought a coach with Capers's track record would be strident and strict. Instead, he's found an approachable, professorial type who gets his message across by rarely raising his voice. Harrison claimed he hadn't heard Capers scream once.

"He's not a high-tempo, hollering, rah-rah guy," said Wilhite. "He's one of the guys that likes to talk and really make sure that you get what he's trying to explain to you."

After two stints as a head coach and most recently serving as a coordinator, Capers said he's enjoyed reconnecting with the teaching aspect of the game.

"I've always enjoyed the teaching part of it, being in the classroom with the players," Capers said. "Obviously, as a head coach you get pulled more and more away from that because you have so many other obligations. So, to me that's why you probably got into this business to begin with back when you first started - you enjoyed the teaching; you enjoyed the relationships."

While Capers is teaching, he is also learning. He made it clear that while he'll give Belichick and Pees input if they ask for it, his job is to learn their system, not the other way around.

"Bill's system has been as successful or more successful than anybody's in the league, and there is a reason why - because he's put a lot of thought into that," said Capers. "I look at my job as to try to learn that system and try to contribute in any small way that I might."

Chances are Capers's contribution to Belichick's staff will be anything but small this season.

"I talked to Dom last year before he took the job, not about that job, but just coaching in general," said Cowher. "He was contemplating whether to sit out or go back. He had some other opportunities. It was going to take a special situation for him to go back, and he stepped into such a situation."