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'll try to use the preseason as well as training camp to help evaluate that mix, ... Not just individually, but collectively, the groups working together and kind of what looks like the best combination and that type of thing.
We have a lot of guys in that category. It could come down to some game-time decisions. But I think we're heading in the right direction. How quickly that will all come together or not come together, I'm not sure.
I feel like I've had a strong relationship with Robert [Kraft] and his family since I was here in 1996 and I think it's gotten stronger every year that I've been here with the Patriots. The more things we do together, talk about together, work together on, the closer we become and the more we rely on each other. I feel like our relationship is very close and continues to grow closer every year as we grow older together.
I also coached the secondary and Tom coached the receivers, so we worked together on a daily basis with each other,
There's a lot of love between us -- me, Charlie, Romeo. We've been together with the Giants, the Patriots, the Jets and the Patriots again. For it to be able to end this way ... the only word I can think of is 'special.'
This is our best opportunity to pull everything together in terms of substitution, communication, execution, playing on the road, playing in a hostile environment, all of those kinds of things.
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 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.
I think Wesly's experience in the kicking game has definitely showed up here in training camp. Between his experience and his playing ability, his toughness and his desire to be a good special teams player, all of those are weighing on the right side of the scale.
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.
I think there were a number of times when they had trouble with the running game. At times, they had trouble on third down.