PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

bill belichick

by

Belichick was also Parcells-like when discussing running back Fred Taylor and his possible return from a toe injury; Taylor is making progress but Belichick got a bit punchy when discussing a timetable for any injured player.

“The next time you get a cold, we should say ‘When are you going to feel good?’ Tell me exactly when you are going to feel good. That’s exactly what you guys ask me,” Belichick said. “Next time you get sick, you tell me the exact date when you are going to feel good, and make sure you are confident you are going to hit that target. It’s impossible.”

https://www.patspropaganda.com/belichick-was-also-parcells-like-when-discussing/

Football Outsiders: Lengthy Dissertation on 4th and 1

by

Football Outsiders: Lengthy Dissertation on 4th and 1

I’ve avoided discussing the 4th and 1 call this week because personally I’m all for aggressive coaching. Had the Ravens been similarly aggressive two weeks ago they probably would’ve beaten the Patriots. But they didn’t and they lost.

So here’s a long explanation of what Bill should or shouldn’t have done. I really don’t care because a win is a win and we won. I’m sure if Randy Moss and Bert Ferve weren’t coming to town this weekend it would still be all anyone was talking about.

When you have a chance to finish someone off you take it. I’d much rather have Tom Brady and a veteran offensive line in control of sealing the game. No offense to the defense, but the offense is still the stronger of the two units.

Patriots/Belichick Excerpt from Kirwan’s Take Your Eye Off The Ball

by

The following is an excerpt from Pat Kirwan’s excellent book Take Your Eye Off The Ball, chapter 11 FBI: Football Intelligence. You can purchase the book here. I highly recommend it. I plan on doing a full review of the book as soon as I finish it, which at this rate should be tomorrow.

Testing For Football Smarts

Everyone knows about Bill Belichick’s FBI. He has one of the NFLs best football minds and has been one of the game’s great innovators. But he know as well as anyone that ideas alone don’t equal victories. It’s not what Bill or any other coach knows-it’s what the players know. That is why Belichick places such a high priority on finding players who are smart enough to execute the scheme he’s running.

When Belichick is evaluating college players, he likes to give them a quiz. He’ll meet a prospect in a classroom on campus or in a hotel room at an all-star game, put the player in a chair just like a student, and talk through five or six or 10 things that the Patriots do. He’ll tell a defensive lineman, for example, that he’ll be down in a three-point stance on first and second down, and in a two-point stance on third down. He’ll diagram it all for them on a white board. Then they’ll take a break. When the reconvene, Bill will sit down, send the kid to the board and say, “Now tell me everything I just told you.”

From there he can make a judgement call on whether the player has shown the requisite FBI to succeed in his system.

When he went out on his college tour before the 2008 NFL Draft, Belichick ran Jerod Mayo through that classroom drill. Mayo went to the board and repeated everything he’d been told right back to Belichick. He could envision himself and identify his responsibilities in every play. Sold. Belichick drafted Mayo with the 10th pick of the first round. Mayo became the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year and was voted New England’s Defensive Captain before his second season.

 More often, players reveal something during a Belichick test that makes them radioactive to him. I remember being with him at the scouting combine, sitting in a hotel room and waiting for prospects to show up for their interviews. A player would show up and bill would welcome him into the room with a short “Nice to see you, have a seat,” never giving the kid a chance to build rapport. Immediately, he’d shut the lights off and turn on the tape of the player in college, usually footage of the guy not playing great. He’d ask the player, “what was the call here?”. He was testing the player’s ability to recall specific situations, a skill that is essential in the NFL.

The players would have no time to prepare. He’d answer the question off the cuff, then Bill would watch another play and ask “Okay, what happened here?” He was trying to determine how the kid handled adversity. Was he going to admit he made a bad read, or was he gong to blame someone else?

I remember one prospect in particular who blamed his coaches for one of his bad plays. When the interview was done, the kid left the room and Belichick crossed him off his list of candidates. Bill knew that sooner or later, he would wind up having to correct that player in the locker room at halftime or make an adjustment on the sideline, and he already know how the kid would respond.

by

I would say the big thing about San Diego’s offense is their deep balls. He’s a very good deep ball thrower and they run… I mean, every play, really, is a deep pass. Not that they throw them all down there, but they have them going. So if you don’t have him defended well, he hits those deep balls and of course that opens up everything else. It opens up the intermediate passing game. It helps the running game and all that. So their offense is really built around getting the ball down the field. And they’ve got good receivers and tight ends and even in [Darren] Sproles’ case, a back that can get down the field and a quarterback that is very accurate throwing it, as we talked about there. They’re the best team in the league on third-and-long. Third-and-10 to them is nothing. Third-and-10, Third-and-three, they don’t care. They’re fine with that and they hit a lot of them. It’s really their deep passing game, and I would say that extends on all downs: first down, second down, third down, play action, drop back, three receivers, two receivers. Put out there whoever you want, they’re looking to throw it deep and if you take that away, then they’ll come to the underneath stuff where you don’t have very many guys and they have some good receivers like [Antonio] Gates and Sproles and [Randy] McMichael and those guys. That’s kind of what their passing game [is]. Other than some situational plays, that’s kind of the essence of it.

Bill Belichick on the Chargers Offense

https://www.patspropaganda.com/i-would-say-the-big-thing-about-san-diegos/