This summer, Boston magazine ran a feature that would have been 10 percent more compelling if they hadn’t asked me to contribute to it. Basically, the mag asked 14 different luminaries (a term I use extremely loosely) to partake in a psychological breakdown of Patriots coach Bill Belichick. This is no small endeavor; Belichick is a mountain of neuroses, perceived slights, inferiority complexes, raging self-aggrandizement and, oh yeah, undeniable brilliance. This all makes him my kind of coach. Tony Dungy might be admirable and an inspiration to millions, but that doesn’t make him any less boring. I’ll take Belichick and his demons any day. 

He’s without question the most compelling figure in Boston sports right now, and perhaps the whole country. Which is why I loved the Boston mag feature so much. I mean, how often do you get to see a sitting Senator and former presidential candidate put your local football coach on the couch? (Albeit boringly. http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/breaking_down_belichick/page3 ) 

What I find compelling about Belichick is not his supposed affairs, or his standoff nature with the media, or even SpyGate, which seems to exist only to drive Gregg Easterbrook slowly insane. What’s great about Belichick is that he has become an epic coaching figure, the signature football coach of the last 10 years, while doing the exact opposite of what a coach looking for that kind of fame should be doing. Bill Belichick is the anti-game coach, which, in the way we evaluate coaches today, makes him the most famous coach of all. 

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, the title of America’s Football Coach was unofficially held by Belichick’s old mentor, Bill Parcells. (I think Mike Ditka might have held the post for a couple of weeks.) The pair of Super Bowls helped this, of course, but the real reason Parcells was such an epic figure was because he understood how to manipulate the media. He would hold these sidewinding, elliptical, spiteful press conferences in which he would dodge questions and humiliate questioning reporters in the most entertaining way possible. He’d then go buy Mike Lupica or Peter King a beer afterwards, and they would bask in the glow of his football Mensa. Bill Parcells knew how to make himself look like a genius, and he also knew when to leave people wanting more. The more people talked about you, the more your aura grew. 

Belichick has clearly rejected this aspect of Parcells’ tutelage. Belichick doesn’t play with the media; he ignores them. When he deceives them, it’s not out of any sort of Tom and Jerry taunting game. He legitimately believes they are in his way and therefore must be punished. Belichick doesn’t seem to ever get any sunlight, he never seems to smile and the next time he shows even an ounce of joy in being the best coach in sports will be the first. If Belichick worked in your office, he would never show up at any of the happy hours, never talk shop around the water cooler and would be sitting at his desk with his headphones on, solitary, long after you checked out for the evening. And you’d come into work in the morning, and everything would be done and perfect, and your company would have just taken over Nike. Belichick has no use to anything that doesn’t involve the domination of football. Part of me wonders if he has ever cashed any of his paychecks.

This happens to be exactly what we want out of an NFL coach now. Have you ever played that Head Coach video game? I can say with little reservation that this is the most boring video game I have ever seen, and I say this as a Strat-o-Matic nerd. The life of a football coach involves a week’s worth of drudgery with a three-hour interruption of actual football once a week. And they’ve made a video game of this! And people like it! As Neal Pollack once wrote, kids don’t grow up dreaming of being players anymore; they dream of being general managers. Bill Belichick is the poster boy for this, which is why, in the absence of any normal human traits, we have assigned him as a figure of mystery. He probably knows nothing of it, and would have it no other way.

I mean, seriously: When Belichick retires – I assume this will be when he is 90, when football has reached the end of its logical progression and is played by robots with jet packs -- can you really imagine him going into a career of studio punditry or showing up in beer commercials? (It’s impossible to think of him tolerating those idiotic Coors Light ads, which are steeped in a concept so lame that it’s astounding they’re still on the air. They make me want to open a can of Coors Light and pour it over my television.) Who in the world would buy a product because Belichick was endorsing it? And is this guy really ever going to have amusing banter with John Clayton? Belichick is a coach, and only a coach. This is why we adore him; he wants to be nothing else.

Honestly? When Belichick retires, I hope he escapes to the mountains of Montana, holing up in a shack and scribbling up 4,000-page manifestos full of crazy plays, eight-receiver sets, the quarterback lining up behind the tight end, interception-rooskies, that sort of thing. We’ll find him in 2045, wearing a beard he can tuck into his shoes, hair all Nolte-ed up everywhere, still sporting that sweatshirt, rambling into a personal cassette recorder about Arlen Specter and David Tyree. He will have only an imaginary pet ferret named Franklin. He will communicate only via telegraph. He will bottle his own urine. He will be Bill Belichick, mad genius, at his own logical conclusion. And you know what? I’d still hire him over Tony Dungy.

Will Leitch is the author of three books, including the best-selling “God Save the Fan,” the founder of Deadspin.com. He currently serves as a contributing editor for New York Magazine and will be writing his column, “The Outsider,” on Wednesdays, every other week. Contact Will at wleitch@weei.com