Wednesday Daily Rundown 10/19: New England Patriots News and Notes
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Here’s a look at this morning’s top stories:
Belichick gets an addition to the depth chart – Bill Belichick opened his conference call on Tuesday with a happy announcement, telling the members of the local media that he’s officially become a grandfather.
Belichick’s son, Steve and his wife, Jen, added a little baby girl to the family, and the normally reserved head coach sounded pretty excited as he shared the news.
“Well, we have a roster addition to announce this morning,” said Belichick. “It’s a little different than the usual one and the emphasis would be on ‘little’. We can add newborn Blakely Rose to the depth chart. She was born this morning to my son Steve [Belichick] and the real ‘MVP’, Jen, so this is a happy and exciting day for all of us.”
“And with that, we’ll move on to the Steelers.”
Belichick was later asked for a height, weight, or any speed measurables on the newborn he could provide, which he happily replied, “20-inches, seven pounds”.
Good stuff.
 Belichick has had enough of tablets. (USA TODAY Images) |
No more tablets for Belichick – One other area he discussed at length on Tuesday was his frustration with the technology aspect of things, which was evident during the team’s previous home game where the head coach was spotted slamming down his tablet during their loss to the Buffalo Bills.
Apparently, the problem goes beyond the complaints of opposing coaches, who have previously inferred that there was something shady going on with the communications issues at Gillette Stadium. Belichick’s frustation proved that it goes both ways and he admitted that he’s done with tablets and going back to the old way because they’re just too unreliable to depend on.
“As you probably noticed, I’m done with the tablets,” said Belichick. “I’ve given them as much time as I can give them. They’re just too undependable for me. I’m going to stick with pictures as several of our other coaches do as well because there just isn’t enough consistency in the performance of the tablets, so I just can’t take it anymore.”
The head coach labeled it a “personal decision” and said that after giving it a chance, he’s moving on.
“But for me personally, it’s a personal decision, I’m done with the tablets,” said Belichick. “I’ll use the paper pictures from here on because I’ve given it my best shot. I’ve tried to work through the process but it just doesn’t work for me and that’s because there’s no consistency to it.”
After the technology giant caught wind of Belichick’s comments, they released a statement, respecting the coach’s comments while defending their product.
“We respect Coach Belichick’s decision, but stand behind the reliability of Surface,” wrote Microsoft in the statement “We continue to receive positive feedback on having Surface devices on the sidelines from coaches, players and team personnel across the league. In the instances where sideline issues are reported in NFL games, we work closely with the NFL to quickly address and resolve.”
Steelers likely looking to run the ball this week – Down in Pittsburgh, the team has been receiving a lot of criticsm for their lack of attempts running the ball against Miami, especially given the fact they were facing what, at the time, was one of the worst run defenses in the league.
Unfortunately, Pittsburgh ultimately got away from the run and lost their grip on the game, allowing Miami to dictate the flow while taking them out of their game plan.
That’s been a focus this week, with Tomlin mentioning it as he spoke to reporters recently as he explained they needed to get back to a more balanced approach.
“That is our intention always,” said Tomlin via the Steelers’ official site. “We lost our personality a little as that game unfolded because of the lack of possession or total number of snaps. That balance that you speak of is what we seek. We didn’t establish a lot of rhythm in that ball game because of our inability to execute and convert third downs and we turned the ball over some, which has been uncharacteristic of us.”
Patriots Scout Spotted at University of Albany – Despite the fact the NFL season is in full-swing, that doesn’t mean the process of preparing for the future is on the back burner and the Patriots remain hard at work behind the scenes taking a look at potential future players.
According to the Albany Times Union, there was a team scout on hand at the University of Albany on Tuesday afternoon, taking a look at several players, including senior punter Jon Martin along with cornerback Rayshan Clark. Also getting a look was senior left tackle, Kevin Malloy.
Malloy was asked by the newspaper if, as a New Yorker, he had any hard feelings toward the Patriots.
“I like anybody,” he said. “Anybody. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the Midwest or negative 20 degrees. It really doesn’t matter to me. I just want to keep playing football as long as I can. I’ll go up to Canada.”
For now, file this one away until next May.
In the meantime, according to NESN, the Patriots released Ian Silberman and added guard Jamil Douglas to their practice squad on Tuesday, as well as working out offensive tackles Ryan Mack and Pearce Slater and defensive end Jordan Williams.
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