Bill Belichick’s Full Press Conference Transcript 6/7
(PHOTO: Eric Canha-USA TODAY Sports) 🕑 Read Time: 6 minutes
Posted Under: Patriots Transcripts
(PHOTO: Eric Canha-USA TODAY Sports) 🕑 Read Time: 6 minutes
New England Patriots > Patriots Blog
(PHOTO: Eric Canha-USA TODAY Sports) OPENING STATEMENT:
“First of all, sorry to see what happened with [Bruins coach] Bruce [Cassidy] yesterday. Really enjoyed my relationship with him. Always support the Bruins but he was a good friend and somebody that I had a really good relationship with. [He] took the teams to the playoffs, and got pretty close to the finals and all that. I understand what the business is, but I’ll miss him.”
“Just a big congratulations to Romeo [Crennel] on his great career. I saw the retirement yesterday and certainly, he had a great influence here and in many other places where I worked with him and his contribution to the National Football League in so many ways. He mentored so many other young coaches, not to mention hundreds and hundreds of players. Just really a first-class guy. In his two stints here, [he] achieved a lot of success, and certainly we, and I personally, owe a huge debt of gratitude to Romeo for what he did for me, what he did for our football team and the success that we had with him here but also on a personal level with the Giants.”
“So moving on here, veteran minicamp. It’s good to basically have everybody here. We have a couple guys that have excused absences due to other situations but we look forward to getting everybody out there and getting going. It’s a longer day for us. Kind of another part of our process of going from phase one to phase two to phase three OTAs to now a minicamp, a full schedule here, three days in a row. That will start to get us ready for the type of schedule and day that we’ll have in training camp. That’s really our goal now is to prepare the team for training camp and then continue for them to prepare in the time before training camp and then get off to a good start in July and August when we come back again.
“But we’ve strung some days together here and need to have another good week and just keep grinding and moving along. But one step at a time. Still have a lot of work to do but we’re making progress, heading in the right direction, so that’s good.”
On if anyone we don’t see out there would be considered an excused absence or if there are any unexcused absences…
“No. I’ve talked to the players that aren’t there and it’s…(nods). No issues.”
On players noting that some of the terminology is different than it was with Josh McDaniels and what went into changing some of the offensive terminology this offseason…
“Well, we’ve had a lot of changes offensively in the last couple of years. It’s a good time to streamline things. We did that defensively a couple of years ago and felt like this was a good time to do it offensively. There’s an element of that every year.”
On when he says ‘streamline’ if that means the language?…
“Sure, that’s part of it.”
On if that’s for the players’ benefit, for coaches, or for both …
“Well anybody that’s been here for 20 some years understands the process and what words mean certain things and what refers to certain situations and all that. Somebody that’s coming in here and has only been here a couple of weeks wouldn’t have any way of correlating all those things. So I think there’s other ways to sequentially teach them, as an example. So yeah, absolutely. We do that normally every year. But it’s been more on offense this year. It was probably more on defense a couple of years ago.”
On if by ‘a couple of years ago on defense’ if that was 2019…
“’19 and ’20, yeah.”
On Mac Jones and his collaboration and what role he’ll have in helping to shape things …
“We’ll do everything we can, really, to make it as good for him as we can. He’s our quarterback. Just a lot of components to that. I don’t know.”
On the footage of him and Tom Brady sitting down on “A Football Life” and breaking things down and if Jones’ input is as valuable …
“I think that’s the way it would be with every quarterback. That’s the way it was with Matt [Cassel], that’s the way it was with Jimmy [Garoppolo], that’s the way it was with Jacoby [Brissett] when he played for a game, that’s the way it was with Mac last year, that’s the way it was with Cam [Newton], that’s the way it would be with any quarterback. [shrugs] … I don’t know.”
On if that’s the same as it will be on defense at middle linebacker this year …
“It’s a little bit different on defense.”
On if it’s a new system or just a part of a streamlining process…
“I don’t know.”
On how big the changes are that they’re making…
“I don’t know. We make changes every year. I wouldn’t be able to rank them.”
On if some of the rookies who weren’t able to get into games last year, Ronnie Perkins, Cameron McGrone, Joshuah Bledsoe, if he’s seen the type of progression and improvement that he’s hoped for…
“We’ve seen progression from everybody. Again, just trying to get everybody ready for training camp. We’ll see what happens when we get to training camp. That’s when the real evaluation will start. But, yeah, all the guys that have been here are bigger, faster, stronger, understand our system better, understand the NFL schemes and what’s going on on the other side of the ball better, the integration between defense or offense and special teams and training, routines and so forth. Yeah, it’s all better but we’ll see what happens when we get to training camp and the competition starts.”
On if there are any additions to the roster, ‘I think I see a new kicker out there’ …
“No. I mean, we’ll have some tryout players here but there are no additions to the roster, no.”
On if we’re potentially going to see them run an entirely new offense that we’ve never seen before or if they’re just running the current plays in a different ways …
“I don’t know.”
On if it’s early for that …
“Yeah, I mean if you’re asking if we’re going to run the Veer Offense, no that’s not what we’re doing. I’m not really sure what we’re talking about here.”
On the new receivers …
“I think most of the new players are pretty much in the same boat. They have experience in the league but they don’t have experience with the Patriots. And the guys who have experience with the Patriots are ahead of the players that have experience in the league just because they’ve been here longer and have more familiarity with what we’re doing. That’s not taking anything away from anybody. But I would say most guys that come in here have a full plate trying to adjust to what we do, how we do it, in a lot of different ways, not just X’s and O’s. But again, training, terminology, the process, time management, etcetera, etcetera. They’ve all adapted well…I’d say they’re all adapting, it’s usually different for all of them and they’re figuring it out.”
On his career racquetball record against Romeo…
“Probably pretty close.”
How many matches ….
“Quite a few. It’s got to be up there in the triple figures. Probably about the same with Bill Parcells. Yeah, played a lot of racquetball.”
On what constitutes a successful minicamp …
“Well, each player has his own individual personal things to try to work on and we’ll see the team come together, we’ll get through some situations that we didn’t cover the first two weeks and hopefully we’ll be able to move along to the next group of situations when we get to the start of training camp. But that will be a day-by-day evaluation, we’ll see how it goes. We’ll see how things go today. There may be some things we want to hold back on, there may be some things we want to push ahead on. We’ll take a look and see how things go today, and do the same thing tomorrow. It’s really kind of the same process every day. If we’re not ready to move ahead, then there’s no point in moving ahead. If we’re moving a little faster than we thought, then maybe we can add a little more than we thought we’d be able to add. We have a general outline, but that’s modified, really, on a daily basis.”
On that outline if it’s safe to say most of the defense and offense will be installed over the next few days …
“Would it be fair to say…?”
Most of the offense and defense will be installed and run through…
“I mean, a good part of it. Certainly not all of it, by any stretch. You know, fundamentals are fundamentals. So, if you have good fundamentals, then they transfer to other plays. If you have to go back and re-teach fundamentals, then it’s hard to execute plays no matter how many plays you have in or don’t have in. Having a good fundamental base is a big part of installation. We work on the fundamentals that go with the installation and then hopefully we go out there and can execute those plays and then move the process along. I don’t even know what our full installation’s going to be. It’ll just depend on how things go and what we’re able to do. Like, there’s no, like, set, ‘this is – all this is going to go in.’ We’ll see what we need. If we need it … like, there’s things we know we’re going to need and then there’s other things that as they come up, if we’re ready for them, we’ll do them, if we’re not then we won’t.”
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