Bill Belichick
Bill Belichick
William Stephen Belichickis an American football coach, and the long-time head coach of the New England Patriots of the National Football League. Belichick has extensive authority over the Patriots' football operations, effectively making him the General Manager of the team as well. He was previously the head coach of the Cleveland Browns...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth16 April 1952
CityNashville, TN
CountryUnited States of America
We're treating this like a regular week. Put it in the headline. Bold type. It's a regular week. The players know that, the staff knows it.
If a player has a lot of longevity and production, you're looking at two factors -- skill and durability,
You get into the situation where you have an experienced player that gives you a certain quality of play, and you have a younger player who you think is going to be better but he's not better now,
Every player that dresses for the game, I've told them to be ready to go for 60 minutes just like it's a regular-season game.
You can?t create players. You have to draft the board based on what your options are. As soon as you start taking players truly based on need, if they can?t fill that need, then you have to come back the next year or the next pick and you?re drafting again for the same spot and you haven?t filled anything other than putting a name on a piece of cardboard and putting it up on the depth chart.
Fifteen years ago, it wouldn't have been the case. When you don't have free agency and all of that, then you can keep the player in your system and keep developing him and keep him as long as you want. Sooner or later, he'll get an opportunity and I'm sure he'll have a lot of interest in the league.
There certainly haven't been many times in the last few years where you release a player and say, 'Well, this guy couldn't help us. This guy just couldn't do anything,' ... It's more a case of you have a few spots and you have more people than you do spots. So then you have to make a decision as to where you want your depth. Do you want it on the offensive line, do you want it in the kicking game, do you want it in the secondary, do you want it at tackle, do you want it at receiver, do you want it at quarterback?
Bavaro's probably as tough of a - physically and mentally as tough a football player as I've ever coached. So, I would put him in the rare category there.
One of the things we wanted to do today was play competitively against a good football team. Obviously, it came right down to the last play. I was proud of the way our players fought. We had a lot of opportunities for a lot of people to play. This was really our last opportunity to do that, so we tried to take advantage of that.
But again, I think that's consistent with his philosophy, ... Whatever Al's philosophy is, it's been pretty consistent through the years, be it the type of players he gets to play corner(back), the coaches, their style of play, what he wears. It's all consistent.
Obviously, it says a lot for the player and what he's been able to accomplish: No. 1, the skill of the player and, No. 2, his durability. He's carried the ball a lot and he's carried it very effectively. He has a running style that can work in a lot of different ways with his speed, his power, his quickness, and his run vision. It's a very significant individual accomplishment.
I think, for the most part, you're looking at players who are in roles, or situations, as probably being the swing guys on those numbers. I don't know if the geniuses referred to that or not. Probably not,
I think we have some players who are versatile. We have some depth at linebacker, on the defensive line and in the secondary. What we need to do, hopefully we'll have the flexibility to be able to try to do it.
I think any player that hasn't played football for a while, and then comes back and tries to catch up to a lot of guys who have been playing on a regular basis, they're behind. They have to be. If they weren't, then we should cancel all the practices and just show up for the game.