Here's why Bill Belichick does not care to weather questions about frigid conditions

This may not come as much of a surprise, but Bill Belichick isn't much for talking about the weather.

Be it hot, be it wet, be it snowy or, as it is Thursday (mid-teens) and likely for Saturday's playoff game in Foxborough against Baltimore (18-20 degrees), really, really cold, the weather is just something that will happen. It is outside Belichick's control, and thus his interest.

It's a mindset that shapes how the New England Patriots prepare for games, the season, the playoffs, pretty much everything. With the exception of the possibility of lightning, weather is never a consideration in what the Patriots are doing. New England almost always practices outdoors, eschewing the humble, old-style bubble it has set up behind Gillette Stadium.

It meshes with Belichick's core belief that you might as well prepare for anything, which means practicing in everything. Early this season quarterback Tom Brady said New England was inside just once all year.

Big rain, light rain, big wind, light wind, heat, sun in the eyes, perfection, snow, freezing rain, whatever. Baltimore, in contrast, has been practicing indoors because its practice fields are frozen, and thus more likely to cause injury. Plenty of NFL teams, and almost all colleges, do the same.

The Patriots, however, don't have one of those flashy stand-alone training facilities with a full field indoors. Belichick doesn't want one, so they just keep the bubble. The team generally uses some simple fields out behind Gillette and that's it. Training camp is there. They use the same locker room all the time. Nothing changes.

In an era of opulent construction, New England is a minimalist. Most rookies arrive in Foxborough and find a situation that while plenty state of the art, lacks almost all the bells and whistles they enjoyed at the collegiate level (or in some cases high school) where programs pour tens of millions into making things nice and comfortable.

You aren't finding an indoor waterfall in the locker room or a players-only barbershop down the hall. New England is Old School.

"We're playing outside," Belichick said Thursday. "We're practicing outside."

They'll even practice on the Gillette Stadium field. Might as well gain further familiarity. This is some Woody Hayes era stuff.

"As Admiral Nimitz said, 'If you're going to fight in the North Atlantic, you have to train in the North Atlantic," the old Ohio State coach said, quoting the World War II leader. Of course, Hayes used to walk three miles, each way, every day, to work, regardless of the conditions in an attempt to end America's dependency on foreign oil. (Seriously.)

Belichick isn't that fond of nice conditions for practice, even when conditions are actually nice. Brady once said that on the first rep of the first day of training camp some managers brought out a bucket of ice water and dunked the football in it so he was forced to deal with a soaked ball like he might find in a November sleet storm.

Brady, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, said he appreciates it. Nothing fazes the guy now. He's 9-2 in playoff games played in below freezing temperatures, including some epic victories in the snow.

"I know exactly what to wear. I know how many layers to wear every degree," Brady joked to CSNNE's Tom E. Curran. "I'm a [expletive] machine, man, I'm a [expletive] machine! C'mon baby!"

He famously even wears his winter hat to news conferences because the Patriots' locker room is drafty.

So is all this shut-up-and-deal-with-the-elements a way to make the Patriots tougher? To battle through anything but the extreme cold that in general is going to be found only in maybe Green Bay (where New England would never visit this time of year) is really more mental than physical.

Belichick, a man who often wears just a hooded sweatshirt, no matter how cold the temperature, was asked that on Thursday too.

"What mental side of it?" he scoffed. "We practice in it and whatever we practice in, I'm sure we at some point play in it. We've practiced in everything this year – hot, cold, windy, still, day, night, rain. Whatever it is, it is …

"We've seen it in games, we've seen it in practice," he continued. "There's nothing we can do about it. We just need to execute whatever we have, in whatever conditions we're playing in. And we've practiced in all of them."

Belichick not only doesn't like talking about the weather, he doesn't really like anyone talking about the weather. Earlier this year he went on a rant about meteorologists. His idea of knowing what the weather will be is wait for it to hit. Planning ahead is just a waste of time in his otherwise efficient life.

"Just based on history … they're almost always wrong," Belichick said back in November. "There was a 100 percent chance of rain last week, and the only water I saw was on the Gatorade table. It is what it is. We've got to be ready for whatever it is …

"When you walk out on the field, that's really when you know what it is," Belichick said. "The rest of it is a bunch of hot air. We played down in Miami two years ago and there was a 0 percent chance of rain – 0 – and it rained.

"If I did my job the way they do theirs, I'd be here about a week."

That got the Weather Channel's attention.

"Oh Coach, them's fighting words," meteorologist Mike Bettes said. He promptly pointed out that the Weather Channel predictions were off only 1.4 degrees in temperature for the previous week's games and they got precipitation perfectly correct. He encouraged Belichick to download its app.

"Look," Belichick said, "I'm not saying I could do it better than them. I'm just saying they're wrong a lot. That's a fact. They're wrong a lot. We all make mistakes, I'm not being critical of them, I'm just saying I don't think you can [game plan] based on [the forecast]."

The Weather Channel didn't take it too personally. It offered a parting gift.

"I know Coach, you really love the hoodie," Bettes said. "But may we suggest a very stylish Weather Channel fleece on the sidelines?"

It'd probably be too cold for that on Saturday and he isn't likely to eschew the signature BB Hoodie – he's noted in the past that the front pocket helps keep his hands warm (see, weather!).

If the Weather Channel wants to ask him in person, though, it can find him outdoors in Foxborough, at practice, on the actual playing field, in the NFL's version of the North Atlantic.

"Just trying to get ready for Baltimore," Belichick said.