The phrase “ignore the noise” is written on the wall in some corner of Gillette Stadium. Curiously, the Patriots ignored their “ignore the noise” slogan, because Bill Belichick bid it so. And it worked out nicely.

During an interview with WEEI’s “Dale and Keefe” on Friday, Patriots safety Duron Harmon explained how and why the Patriots broke from the norm and let the noise impact their organization — for the better.

“You definitely use some of the noise as motivation,” Harmon told WEEI. “It came to us at some points in time as disrespect. We really don’t talk too much about what we’re doing and how we’re playing. We try and respect our opponents and give them that respect because we know how hard it is, obviously, to win football games. [It came from all over the place this year], the media, other people, other teams about how we’re not that good anymore.

“We used it. It wasn’t something that drove us. Obviously, our teammates and the team is what drove us win, but it definitely helped, moved us along and to play for something a little bit more.”

But this is truly wild: “Ignore the noise” is literally written on the walls of the foundation of this organization. And yet Belichick found a way to turn the noise to 10. New England was in full propaganda mode.

The Patriots embraced an underdog philosophy during their playoff run to Super Bowl LIII, where they beat the Los Angeles Rams, 13-3. New England was only an actual underdog for one game all regular season and postseason in the AFC championship game in Kansas City against the Chiefs. That’s why many media members weren’t buying the Patriots’ attitude that they’d been disrespected. In what world would the Patriots be underdogs? In what world are people genuinely counting out New England? In a weird way, that skepticism about an underdog mentality surely just played further to the New England’s modus operandi, and fired them up further.

So the Max Kellermans and Rob Parkers of the world deserve some gratitude in a weird way. Patriots linebacker Kyle Van Noy, one of the more vocal Patriots in sticking it to the doubters, seemed to recognize that when he thanked Kellerman on ESPN while the host continued to level Tom Brady, who Kellerman’s has repeatedly denounced as finished due to age.

“We just enjoy everyone who doubted us, but thank you Max,” Van Noy said on ESPN.

“Ignore the noise” is a nice catchphrase, but the Patriots chose to embrace the hate this year. And that’s interesting because ignoring the noise is an element of “The Patriot Way.” In past years, the Patriots have placed negative headlines in the team’s locker room to fuel them up. It sounds like this year might have been similar.

“Throughout the course of this week leading up to the Super Bowl, we had the headlines in our building of, ‘The Patriots dynasty is done,’ ‘This defense isn’t any good,’ ‘Tom’s too old.’ All you [media] said that,” Jason McCourty said after Sunday’s game.

That’s how the Patriots felt after their win over the Chargers, too, when Matthew Slater delivered a speech about how, years from now, the Patriots players would be telling another generation about how everyone told the ’18 team that they weren’t good enough, that they were too old.

What the 2018 Patriots don’t realize is the only a select few were actually saying that. And only a fraction of those people were saying that for any reason other than attention. But the players see what the coaches want them to see. The team has occasionally made negative headlines readily available to players and, in some cases, has posted them inside the team’s locker room, according to The Providence Journal.

So perhaps this is a reminder that there is no “Patriot Way.”

There’s Belichick’s way.

And his goal is to win in whatever way possible. There’s no scheme and no play he’s unwilling to try. There are few players he’s unwilling to work with. And if he thinks it will help his team win a Super Bowl, there’s no motivational tactic he’ll avoid.

New England’s run to win Super Bowl LIII proves that. After all, he seems to have brainwashed a team, which had 38 players who had played in a Super Bowl, that they were underdogs. That is Belichick’s way.