DUTIFUL PATRIOTS

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Brandon Meriweather made a big mistake in the first few weeks of his New England Patriots career.

He opened his mouth.

It wasn’t as if the first-year safety made a wild prediction or bombastic remark. He didn’t disclose a team secret. He simply said how lucky he felt getting to practice against teammate Wes Welker every day, calling him “one of the best slot receivers in the league.”

That was enough to nudge Bill Belichick over the edge. At a team meeting, the Patriots coach opened a newspaper and read the quote aloud. Then, according to the Boston Herald, the coach angrily scolded the rookie with: “How the [expletive] would Brandon Meriweather know! You don’t know anything, so shut the [expletive] up!”

Just another day for the best team in football, a place where players quickly learn that boring is better and silence is golden.

More than any franchise in the NFL, the undefeated Patriots (8-0) have clung fast to the notion that no player is bigger than the team. And that means any nail that sticks out -- i.e. Meriweather -- is pounded down.

That philosophy affects whom the team drafts, which free agents are signed and what players say about team strategies and opponents.

For example, it’s no accident that New England is consistently among the top teams when it comes to the number of college graduates on the roster. The team wants brain power. And several of its top players weren’t coddled college stars but lower-round picks -- among them linebackers Tedy Bruschi (third round), Mike Vrabel (third, by Pittsburgh) and Rosevelt Colvin (fourth), and, of course, quarterback Tom Brady (sixth round, after six other quarterbacks).

Belichick has little tolerance for his players -- especially rookies -- making news for any reason other than their play.

“The more people he could call you out in front of, the better. It’s almost like that was part of your rite of passage,” said former Patriots tight end Christian Fauria, now with Carolina.

“He basically said that if you’re a rookie, ‘Shut up, get out of the locker room after a game, we don’t want to see your face on camera.’

“We just didn’t want any strays. I’ve been on other teams since then and it’s not the same. You’ve got assistant coaches giving their own opinions to reporters, everything. It’s like, who’s in charge here? Who’s running the circus?”

Scott Pioli, who heads the club’s personnel department, acknowledged the Patriots might not seem as colorful as other players around the league -- by design.

“They’re a bunch of fun guys -- Rodney, Junior [Seau], Vrabel, Tommy . . .” Pioli said. “But when it’s time to work, it’s time to work.”

Over the last six years, no NFL team has worked more successfully or efficiently. New England won Super Bowls at the end of the 2001, 2003 and 2004 seasons, lost to Indianapolis in the AFC championship game last January, and now could have its best team yet.

Heading into Sunday’s showdown with the Colts, at 7-0 the league’s other unbeaten team, the Patriots are averaging 41.4 points -- nine more than the second-place Dallas Cowboys -- and are also the league leader in yards, passing yards, first downs and turnover differential.

In eight games, Brady already has a career-high 30 touchdown passes. Receivers Randy Moss, Donte Stallworth and Welker, all acquired in the off-season, have scored 20 touchdowns -- more than three-quarters of the teams in the league.

On top of that, the Patriots have the league’s third-ranked defense.

But gaudy statistics tell only part of the story. Interviews inside and outside the Patriots’ organization paint a picture of a head coach -- and, by extension, a team -- obsessed with detail, secrecy, and countering creativity on game day with a vanilla off-field persona that, ideally, is as bland as possible.

“Bill hasn’t changed much over the years,” said Carl Banks, a star linebacker with the New York Giants when Belichick was an assistant coach in the 1980s. “He’s not a car salesman. He’s not one of those coaches who’s going to sell you sunshine. He’s a coach who’s going to get his team ready to play football.”

And the coach isn’t the only person within the organization quick to stomp a player seeking special treatment.

Pioli recalls one free agent the Patriots brought in for a physical examination and interview. When he took a seat in Pioli’s office -- a windowless, unremarkable room in the heart of Gillette Stadium -- the player opened the conversation with a complaint: the club didn’t fly him first class the way other interested teams did.

“I looked at him and said, ‘You’re serious?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I’m serious!’ ” Pioli said. “I said, ‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’ ”

Pioli thanked him for his time and, to the surprise of the slack-jawed player, abruptly showed him the door.

“It took me less than a minute to figure out what that kid’s priorities were,” Pioli said. “There are some beautiful things that come with this business. But if those things are so much more important than the game or the competition, then that player’s not going to be the right fit for us.”

Whereas other NFL teams employ a cadre of experts to handle personnel decisions, contract negotiations and salary-cap management, the Patriots use just Belichick and Pioli. They have worked together since 1992, with the Browns, New York Jets and Patriots, and know well how the other thinks. Fewer bosses at the top allows the franchise to more easily manage an unwavering message to the outside world.

As for the message to Patriots players each week, that too is very consistent, as was discovered by author Michael Holley in two seasons of unprecedented behind-the-scenes access for his 2004 book “Patriot Reign.”

“Bill’s got a game plan from very early in the morning about what he’s going to say to the media, and he tells the team what they’re going to say,” said Holley, a former Boston Globe columnist. “This week, you’ll hear every player in that locker room say the Colts are the best team in the NFL.”

Then, beginning around today, the writer added, Belichick will tell his players exactly what they need to do to beat the league’s best team.

Brady said Belichick is “able to break down teams and understands what gets you beat . . . and the way you need to play the game in order for you to play your best.

“There are some coaches that say, ‘We need to stop the run, the pass, the draw, the screen, the trap,’ and give you 25 things so you’re going out there saying, ‘What the hell am I going to stop?’

“He breaks it down to a couple things and usually . . . if we do the things that he really talked about, usually we come out ahead.”

Belichick is also a master at making adjustments on the fly, a skill he honed during his years as the Giants’ defensive coordinator.

Banks remembers a game against Washington when, based on feedback from him and fellow linebacker Lawrence Taylor, the coach drew up an entirely new defensive scheme in a matter of minutes.

Banks said he never played for a coach so ready to listen to his players, so flexible when it came to tearing up one plan and implementing another.

“I’ve been around some coaches who are so arrogant it’s, ‘Just run my defense and shut up,’ ” Banks said. “Some guys are so interested in being a genius, they spend all their time trying to put a square inside of a circle.

“That’s the thing about Bill. He forms a partnership with his players. He listens.”

And, as Meriweather discovered, he also reads.

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sam.farmer@latimes.com