No way is this a ruse. Bill Belichick LOVES Julius Peppers. I went back to the Carolina game in 2005 to see what he thought of him, and this is what I found. If you don't want to read all of it, he basically thinks Peppers is the Randy Moss of Defense, and even makes comparisons between him and Lawrence Taylor. Now add 4 more years of experience.
9/14/2005
Q: They didn’t seem to move Peppers around much.
BB: I don’t think they need to move him. He causes plenty of problems where he is. He’s a hard guy to deal with. He’s hard to run at. He’s hard to throw at. That’s where most of the right-handed quarterbacks have to throw, into that left side. He’s a factor there one way or the other. Because the offense usually extends a little bit to try to take care of him, they like to bring to the linebackers and blitz them up inside, whether it’s [Will] Witherspoon or Morgan or [Brandon] Short, whoever it is. So, as the line widens, to take Peppers and give attention to Peppers, that opens up a lot of the inside pressures for them. So, they do a good job of that. He’s a good player. We talked about last week [Randy] Moss being kind of in a special category offensively for the Raiders. I think you have to put Peppers in that same, whatever category that is, defensively. You have to know where he is every play. If they move him, they move him. If they don’t, sometimes they drop him. Sometimes they stunt him. A lot of times when they move him, they move him after the snap. In other words, the ball is snapped and he’s stunts down inside or he’s on a gain or something like that. It’s not like he doesn’t move off of that spot. But, for the most part, he does align there. At times he reduces down. But for the most part, he is on that tackle.
Q: What about when he was at receiver? Didn’t they throw him a couple of jump balls in the corner of the end zone last year?
BB: Yes. Well, he has played tight end.
Q: What do you do there?
BB: It’s hard. He’s a hard guy to match up against. The guy could probably play… he certainly could play outside linebacker. We know he can play defensive end. I imagine he could probably move inside and play defensive tackle. There's no question he could play tight end. He probably could play offensive tackle. He's 290-something pounds. You're talking about a guy that could probably play six or seven positions on the field. That's pretty unusual.
9/15/2005
Q: How has Julius Peppers improved in since you last played him in the Super Bowl?
BB: Well, we played him last year in the preseason. So, we got a good look at him down there too. He played a lot in that game. I think he is essentially the same player, but he is more experienced, he reads some plays quicker, reacts quicker, and uses his hands. He used them well, but he's even improved on that. He's a hard guy to fool and even if you do get him out of position a little bit, he's such a great athlete, he has a lot of speed and power that he can recover very quickly. Again, it's different, but similar to coaching a player like Lawrence Taylor who, in all honesty, was out of position quite a bit, but he was such an exceptional athlete and was so fast and explosive, even though he was out of position, he could recover and still get back in on the play, which most players really can't do, or they can't do it as well as he could. Peppers is a little bit in that category. He makes a lot of plays and then there's times when he is a little bit out of position, but he recovers very quickly.
Q: How does he influence what an offense does?
BB: Well, I think you have to account for him every play. You have to know where he is. He can ruin the game. Just like he did with the Giants. He ruined [Eli] Manning for about a month, too. He went in there, they had him double teamed, he blew past the tackle, strip sacked the ball and messed up Manning's elbow, scooped it up and ran in for a 60-yard touchdown. It doesn't get any worse than that. But, that is the kind of play he can make. And he was supposed to be doubled on the play, too. He's an impact player. You have to know where he is. You have to defend him. He beat us inside on a rush down there in the preseason game last year, I don't know, for about a 15, 17-yard sack, whatever it was. We don't have any quarterbacks that can run away from him. I can tell you that. If he's after us, he's going to get us. He's a lot faster than we are.
