Re: All Access
Mike Lynch: "Just 7 days away from the NFL Draft. I think fans might be interested - what's your typical day like at this stage, counting down to the draft?"
Bill Belichick: "Kind of like studying for a final exam. You've got a lot of information, but you keep going back over things, and maybe go over a few new things - review the medical, review your draft value system for potential trades, things like that. Maybe if you get into a conversation about 'Look, there's this guy...' - maybe you go back and look at them together and maybe you haven't made that comparison between those two particular players and get a little better feel for it. But it's similar to the final exams. You don't know what the question is going to be, because you don't know how it's going to fall, so you just try to compare on a lot of different levels."
ML: "Does any new information come in this late, this close to the draft? Can anything change on any player?"
BB, half-jokingly: "Oh sure, there's information coming in all the time."
ML: "Really?"
BB, half-jokingly: "Oh yeah, 'this team's going to do that, this team's dropping, this guy's falling, this guy's got some sort of problem, random injury, he'll never play again, and all that. So, you deal with those kind of swirling rumors all the way up to draft day. Some of them you have to check out, some of them are just rumors."
ML: "How often does the phone ring with offers from other teams trying to move up, trying to take one of your first round picks?"
BB: "You know, it varies, but I'd say this year has been more active than in the past. We have two first round picks, and we're the only team that has that. We've had a lot of teams talk to us about them moving down and us moving up. Moreso than usual. And I think the read on that is other teams like where we're sitting. And I think that they're seeing, that if they're picking up in the teens somewhere, the high teens maybe, a 2-for-1 deal - give up their pick and drop down to where we are at 24, 28."
ML: "How important is the character issue when you're putting everything into the mix there?"
BB: "Well, I think when you take a player you get everything. You get his character, you get his intelligence, you get his speed, you get his strength, you get his work ethic. You get all those things. So, you just have to decide when all is said and done what value you're going to place on the player. Some guy might be a little faster, some guy might have a little bit more experience, some guy might be in a lower level of competition. You weigh and factor all of those things in and then you decide what grade to put on him, and that's what his value is, and even though he's a lot different from another player with that same grade, you're saying the overall value is about the same. If you're going to reject him, then you should just reject him - it doesn't make a difference what his grade is - whether that's a medical reject, a character reject, or what have you."
ML: "You were at the Final 4. I know Billy Donovan is a friend of yours. Have you ever been to a championship game before?"
BB: "In lacrosse, not basketball."
ML: "Pretty exciting. Now Mike Ditka told Jim Nance that the whole tournament is the greatest show on Earth, that it's even a bigger spectacle than the Super Bowl. Certainly a little bit of a reach for Ditka. Let's just say consider the source, OK? But tell me about - I've been to a semi-final, but I haven't been to a championship and it just blew me away when I walked into the atmosphere."
BB: "It is. There's a lot of enthusiasm. And of course you have the two schools that have a lot of the college tradition, the college spirit, and so forth, heightened by a championship game. You know, it was very exciting. Two good teams, and the way they matched up, they certainly put on a very competitive game. It was fun. I've never been to one before, and it was a great atmosphere. It was a great game and I was very happy for Billy and his team, especially the players. You know, that was a team that won last year, they were all underclassmen, they all made a commitment to each other, they came back, and they won again. You know, I was really happy to see that. They made a commitment to each other and they upheld it and they deserved to win."
ML: "Listen, I'll let you get back to your homework. Good luck on your exam next week."
BB: "Thanks Mike."
