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
I thought there were some good things defensively. It was nice to see the turnovers. I thought we played more competitively in the running game and on third down. But we've only been in camp for three weeks. It's not like we're three or four months down the road.
I think there were a number of times when they had trouble with the running game. At times, they had trouble on third down.
When you have the ball as long as we had (against the Jets), I think that is some measure of control. But we'd like to have more rushing yards for the number of attempts. There's no question about that. There were some positive things in the game about our running game. There are certainly a lot of things that we can work on. We'd like to be more consistent and gain a few more yards. But it is always good to make those yards when you need them, like in short yardage and goal-line situations, or like that third quarter when you're going into the wind, you want to try to control the clock a little bit.
This year, we have an extra third and an extra fourth. Having those extra mid-round picks in a full draft certainly gives you flexibility to move up, but there's only so far you can go in the first round. From 21st, you're not going to be able to get into the top 10, but you could move up a couple of spots.
He was a guy who was able to go hard and run hard on virtually every single play of the game. It didn't make any difference if it was the fourth quarter, in the middle of a two-minute drive, or the third play of the game. He was always very, very close to his top speed. ... Even if he had good players covering him, he'd wear them down.
The third quarter was really frustrating, ... We had the ball at their end of the field for most of the quarter and couldn't get a whole lot done.
The thing I thought was Jerry's greatest strength ... was his endurance. I thought he was a guy who was able to go hard and run hard on virtually every single play of the game. It didn't make any difference if it was fourth quarter, in the middle of a two-minute drive or the third play of the game. He was always very, very close to his top speed. Nobody else was like that.
They run the ball. He throws it downfield. They pick up third downs. They control the game.
It?s always good to make those yards when you need them, like in short yardage and goal line situations or like that third quarter (against the Jets) when you're going into the wind. You want to try to control the clock a little bit. Those are important yards, too. I think we can do a better job in running the ball than we did. I hope we can.
If you're not really good in the running game and you're not really good on third down, you're probably not going to be really good defensively,
I thought Tom did a good job managing the game, especially opening night where you know you're going to get a couple of different (defensive) looks. He showed a lot of poise.
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 that Nick has done enough in his opportunities this year in preseason and in training camp to earn some playing time. Whether that continues or doesn't continue, I don't know. That will be determined by the way he plays, the way other people play, and again, that just builds a little bit of our versatility.
I think we would have been OK in the 3-4. We just got off to a rocky start.