*About his ability to read what was happening on the field, that is, field intelligence, Belichick was pleased. The ability to make those reads on the defense was a hard thing to measure, as football intelligence was always hard to measure. There were some quarterbacks who were very smart, who knew the playbook cold, but who were not kinetic wonders, and could not make the instantaneous read. That was the rarest of abilities, the so-called Montana Factor: the eye perceiving, and then in the same instant, making the additional transfer from brain to the requisite muscles. The NFL was filled with coaches with weak arms themselves, who could see things quickly on the field but who were doomed to work with quarterbacks who had great arms, but whose ability to read the defense was less impressive. What Brady might have, they began to suspect, was that marvelous ability that sets the truly great athletes apart from the very good ones. Or as one of the assistants said, it was like having Belichick himself out there if only Belichick had a great arm. In the 2001 training camp Brady would come off the field after an offensive series, and Belichick would question him about each play, and it was quite remarkable: Brady would be able to tell his coach what every receiver was doing on each play, what the defensive backs were doing, and explain why he had chose to throw where he had. It was as if there were a camera secreted away in his brain. Afterward, Belichick would go back and run the film on those same plays and would find that everything Brady had said was borne out by film. *