Bill Belichick is, among many other things, a connoisseur of sorts when it comes to the kicking game. He's also shown a penchant for playing head games with other teams.

The former can be one of the most boring aspects of football. The other is something that had fans screaming at their TVs. But on Sunday, it was a key factor in swinging the game in the final moments of the New England Patriots' 23-21 win over the Arizona Cardinals.

Belichick's weird late timeout before the missed game-winning field goal

With the clock running and less than a minute left in the game, the Cardinals needed only hit a very makeable 47-yard field goal to take the lead. However, the Patriots didn't use their final remaining timeout -- at least not at first. Instead, Belichick waited until there were 41 seconds left on the clock before stopping it.

It was an odd sequence of events -- and seemed like the Patriots let much-needed time slip away for no reason. After the game, Belichick explained the reasoning behind the timing.

"If they would've run right out and lined up to kick it, then I don't think I would've taken the timeout," Belichick said. "Generally, I don't think you want to go out and line up your field goal team, and get it all set, and then make your kicker wait 20 seconds to kick it. I mean you could theoretically, but most kickers don't like that. I don't really think that's the way to go, personally. When they came out there, that's what I thought they were going to do. Run right out and kick because it was fourth down."

So he was waiting to see if the Cardinals A) make the kicker wait around and get less comfortable, or B) let the kicker be comfortable and kick it without the clock running down all the way. They did neither, which led to the second part of his explanation.

"Then, the holder wasn't even down,"Belichick continued. "The kicker was 10 yards off to the side warming up. It looked like they were going to bleed it down. I thought we could save maybe 20 seconds or so in the 40 second clock. Somewhere in there. I thought we'd be able to save that. Obviously, if the kick was no good, we're kneeling anyways. It wouldn't make any difference. That would have only helped us if the kick had been good."

So Belichick tried to save 20 seconds or so and hold on to his timeout. It didn't really work, as the Patriots would've lost the same amount of time and the timeout if Catanzaro had made the field goal. However, it did end up working in the Patriots favor.

Belichick's hesitation to call a timeout (when the rest of the world is screaming for once) is reminiscent to the famous Malcolm Butler goal line interception in Super Bowl XLIX. Rather than call a timeout with the Seattle Seahawks on the goal line, Belichick opted to let the clock run and see how the Seahawks handled a dwindling clock with the Super Bowl on the line. (We all know how that turned out.)

Belichick proves that kickoffs still matter

Part of the reason that the Cardinals had a hard time getting into field goal range was another aspect of the kicking game that's slowly being pushed to the wayside: the kickoff.

Rather than have Stephen Gostkowski just boot the ball through the endzone for an easy touchback (which he can do), the Patriots opted for a high, short kick outside of the endzone that the Cardinals had to choice but return.

The New England coverage unit played the kickoff well as Nate Ebner brought down Andre Ellington at the 17 -- eight yards shy of where the touchback would've left them. On top of that, Tyvon Branch was called for a hold on the play, bringing the ball back to the 8-yard line.

It's a minor part of the game, but because of Belichick's meticulous approach to special teams, the emphasis there put the Cardinals further in the shadow of their own goal post, making the game-winning drive that much more difficult.

This is important for Belichick because he's one of the biggest proponents of the kicking game in football. With the NFL leaning towards eliminating kickoffs due to safety, plays like those (and awesome returns) are a reminder of why they're an important part of the game.

"I know there was a lot of sentiment to eliminate that play, but those are the kinds of plays that are good strategy plays in football. Certainly, we had an opportunity to kick it out of the end zone on the last kickoff, but with a good field goal kicker, a good offense, good quarterback, we try to put them on as long a field as we could. ... That was a great situational play and we needed it at that time. In the end, those yards showed up on the other end of the field."

If there's one thing that can always get Belichick to talk, it's the nuances of the kicking game.