Fridays with Bill: Inside the Football Mind of Bill Belichick

To George, who was present at the creation of both the Patriots and my career.

Contents

Introduction

1. Coaching

2. Players

3. Roster

4. Training Camp

5. Season

6. Opponents

7. Offense/Defense

8. Special Teams

9. Strategy

10. Art & Science

11. Hoodie on Holidays

12. Bill in Brief

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Patriots coach Bill Belichick is famous for press conferences that are circumscribed and laconic. First, there’ll be a brief look back at the previous game: We’re on to Cincinnati.

This usually will be followed by a terse explanation of decisions. Question: For those of us who weren’t there last night, can you update us on why Vince Wilfork didn’t play? Answer: We just didn’t put him in. That’s why. Question: Because? Answer: Because there were other players who played.

Finally, a thorough scouting report on the upcoming opponent, which invariably Belichick feels will pose a stiff challenge. And, upon request, specific and detailed assessments of individual players.

But the tone and content of Friday’s sessions are distinctly different. The weekly preparations for Sunday’s game essentially are complete: We’re winding down for the Steelers. Practices now are about fine-tuning. The midweek media crowd has dwindled to those regulars whom Belichick calls the Friday Warriors, most of whom have covered the club daily for years and whom Belichick has dubbed the few, the proud, not the free.

Belichick at the lectern for his daily briefing at Gillette Stadium during last year’s training camp. (photo by John Tlumacki)

How are you guys doing? the coach will inquire after arriving at the workroom podium in his usual cutoff hoodie. Hay in the barn? Are those weekend stories written? All right, whatever you need here.

What ensues is the most provocative and entertaining gathering of the week, as Belichick, unusually expansive and eclectic, serves up what he apologetically acknowledges can be long answers to short questions.

Fridays with Bill provides an intriguing glimpse into the best football mind in professional football, insights and musings from the man who has won an unprecedented five Super Bowl championships as head coach and who is destined for the Hall of Fame. This is Belichick at his most relaxed, profoundly philosophical and often puckish, holding forth on topics ranging from deferring the coin toss to his struggles with technology to his favorite Halloween candy.

The coach pondering a question from the beat reporters during the 2006 season. (photo by Matthew Lee)

That’s a great question, is his prompt to offer a Football 101 tutorial that provides a rare glimpse into the coaching philosophy that has created the National Football League’s most enduring dynasty. Belichick’s topics include everything from composing rosters to developing rookies to preparing for unfamiliar rivals to challenging officials’ calls on the field.

Fridays with Bill includes dozens of photographs displaying a startling variety of expressions from the league’s most impassive countenance. It’s a book designed both for browsing through chapters that range from assembling a roster to conducting training camp to preparing for opponents and for an intensive seminar on the art of instructing and evaluating players. For pro football fans and followers, it’s a front-row seat in the Gillette Stadium media workroom—no credential required.

— John Powers

April 2018

1. Coaching

Coaching is in Bill Belichick’s DNA. For more than three decades, his father, Steve, was an assistant and scout at the U.S. Naval Academy and was his son’s foremost mentor. My dad…was a constant, said Belichick, whose first football job was at his father’s summer camp.

While the younger Belichick was much better at lacrosse, he had an obsessive passion for the gridiron and would have worked for free if it had given him an opportunity to immerse himself in the game. The first paid position came his way in 1975, when the Baltimore Colts hired him at 23 as a special assistant for $25 a week. I didn’t know anything, he acknowledged, but at least I was a warm body.

In his first five years, Belichick worked for four NFL clubs, usually as a special teams assistant. I got a lot of exposure in a short time to a lot of football, he said. In the end, that’s not a bad thing.

The Hoodie in winter, topped by official knit hat. (photo by Jonathan Wiggs)

Belichick collected his first two Super Bowl rings as defensive coordinator for the Giants, where he worked for a dozen years before obtaining his first head job with the Browns, who fired him after four losing seasons, just before they decamped for Baltimore. His renaissance began in 2000 in New England, where his exhaustive preparation, his absolute focus on the moment, and his unsentimental approach to his roster have produced five NFL titles and guaranteed him a place in the Hall of Fame.

I like football. I like the game, I like the players, I like what it’s all about, Belichick said. Every part of it—whether it’s assembling a team, working with new players, working with veteran players that are experienced and extremely talented at the highest level, game planning, scouting, preparation, practices, games. I enjoy all of it. It beats working.

SUMMER JOB

"I was fortunate that I was able to work at my dad’s football camps, which was two to three weeks over the summer. It was a great experience for me. It was a summer job that was a week off from my other summer jobs, whether that was waiting or working for Mayflower Moving or whatever it happened to be. It was good because I had an opportunity to work with a lot of college coaches, other guys who eventually became pro coaches. A couple coaches like Ralph Hawkins and George Boutselis, [who] I actually worked with my first year at the Colts, worked in my dad’s camps, Whitey Dovell also. There were three of them on that staff.

That was a great opportunity for me, too, to work in those camps. It was a lot of good coaches, working with kids in high school, junior high school. Not that I was like a full-fledged coach or anything, but just the experience of being around it, seeing a lot of the things, hearing coaches talk, exchanging ideas, seeing different coaches coach different techniques at the same position. It was a great experience, too. It wasn’t a high-paying summer job, but it was a good job. Glad I had it.

APPRENTICESHIP

"I was playing lacrosse and that was probably my better sport. But I loved football and then when the opportunity came up to go with Coach [Lou] Holtz down to [North Carolina] State in the spring of ’75, that was something I felt would marry well with my education, trying to get a master’s and coach with him. When that didn’t work out—Lou was the first coach that hired me and the first coach that fired me, as I like to remind him—then it fortunately worked out with Coach [Ted] Marchibroda at the Colts.

I didn’t really have anything. I didn’t really have anywhere to go at that point because the N.C. State thing fell through. I was totally open and fortunately that was able to work out with Ted, and, as I said, some of the other coaches that were on that staff like George and Whitey. They were able to recommend me. [Along with] Jerry Falls, who my dad coached and who was Ted Marchibroda’s son’s coach in high school. So all those connections helped me get started. Plus, I think the price was right.

FIRST SEASON WITH COLTS

After sending out 250 letters seeking his first paying football job, Belichick was offered a position with the Colts, essentially viewing film and running errands. He was willing to work ’round the clock for nothing and learn everything he could about the game, recalled head coach Ted Marchibroda. While Belichick earned a pittance, it was a priceless chance to study the NFL from the bottom up.

"We went to camp July 5. The first game was September 21, I think. So, six preseason games, three scrimmages against the Redskins. It was a whole two and a half months of training camp basically before we even played a game. It was a long, long preseason. Squads were small, so I snapped a lot to help the timing for the offense, passing, 7-on-7 and 1-on-1 drills, things like that. It was a great experience with Coach [Ted] Marchibroda and [defensive coordinator] Maxie Baughan and the rest of the defensive staff, and George Boutselis, the special teams coach.

"I learned an awful lot. I didn’t know anything. I was just thrown into an environment where I think there were only seven coaches on the staff. Three on offense, three on defense, and one on special teams. I was like the eighth guy. I didn’t know anything but at least I was a warm body. I got thrown a lot of responsibility and opportunity to do things that, had there been a bigger staff, I would have never gotten to do. That was a great opportunity for me. We started out 1–4, playing in front of 20,000 people there at Memorial Stadium.

"Then we started winning and Bert Jones had a tremendous year—we had a real good defense. The front four there of Fred Cook, Joe Ehrmann, Mike Barnes, and John Dutton, they had like 50-something sacks that year. We won our last nine games. We went from 1–4 to 10–4. We went from playing in front of 20,000 to whatever that holds, 60-some. So that was pretty exciting. We lost to Pittsburgh in the playoff game—they eventually won the Super Bowl.

"[We] started training camp at Goucher College and we were there until the first of September. Then we went from Goucher to McDonogh School and practiced out in the pasture there. It was crazy. We were there for a couple weeks then finally the Orioles finished up. They were in the World Series that year, I think, so we didn’t even get to Memorial Stadium until around the first of October. Of course, at that point the infield was still down. They resodded that, so we only practiced on half the field and had about 40 yards to practice on. That wore out pretty quickly, so then we would go across the street to Eastern High School and practice.

Belichick in full dyspepsia, appealing to the officials amid the first defeat of the 2011 season at Buffalo. (photo by Barry Chin)

The whole team walks out of Memorial Stadium, hits the ‘WALK’ button, goes across 33rd Street, and walks over to Eastern High School, which had two blades of grass—dirt, glass, rocks. It was an inner-city practice field, about what you’d expect, filming from a stepladder. But it worked. Team started slow, gained a lot of confidence and came together. That was a really good football team. Bert Jones was a great quarterback and he continued to be until he hurt his shoulder. There’s no telling how good that guy would have been. If he’d had a full career, he could have been up there with anybody I’ve been around, certainly. I learned a lot. I didn’t put a lot of money in the bank but in terms of experience I did, not actual cash. That was a fun year.

EARLY YEARS AS PRO ASSISTANT

I was very fortunate my first few years in the league. I worked for a lot of different coaches, worked with a lot of different assistant coaches, worked in different systems, worked in different cities, a lot of different players, different organizations. So I got a lot of exposure, a lot more than I wanted, but I got a lot of exposure in a short amount of time to a lot of football. In the end, that’s not a bad thing. Wasn’t great at the time, but in the end it turned out to be beneficial.

STEELERS

The Steelers of the mid-to-late ’70s were a muscular and colorful dynasty that won four Super Bowls in six seasons and sent nine players to the Hall of Fame, along with Coach Chuck Noll. The Steel Curtain, their defensive line that was anchored by Mean Joe Greene, set the tone for a smashmouth club that still plays old-school football.

"In ’75 with the Colts, we started out 1–4 and we won the last nine games to go 10–4 and win the division. It was a tremendous turnaround. Then we went to Pittsburgh for the playoffs and they had a great team. We really had a chance in that game. It was like 17–13 in the fourth quarter. We drive down, we’re on the five- or six-yard line and they intercepted, ran it back for a touchdown. So instead of going ahead now we’re down by two scores and we end up getting beat.

"The point being, for my first year in the league, just seeing how good they were. I mean, they were so good on defense. Every guy was better than the next guy. From Joe Greene to Jack Lambert, that whole front four, and then the secondary. And offensively….

When you’re a young coach and you’re [thinking,] ‘Okay, who does things in a way that you admire or respect or want to emulate?’ Or, ‘What can you take from a good program to help you as a coach?’ Or, ‘If you ever get a chance, what would you do that they do?’ They were one of those teams. From the first year the Steelers had a very strong impact from the outside on my philosophy as a coach.

EXCHANGING IDEAS

You talk to a lot of people. It depends on what kind of information you’re looking for. If it’s another team or someone that’s familiar with that team or a player and they’re familiar with that player, that’s one thing. And if they’re not or they’re not as familiar with it as somebody else, it’s, ‘Who do you ask the questions to?’ Somebody to give you the answers you’re looking for. It depends on what you’re after.

The coach clarifying before the next play against Pittsburgh in 2013. You want everybody to be on the same page doing the right thing. (photo by Jim Davis)

VISITING COLLEGE COACHES

Each year, Belichick hits the road to check in with college coaches and evaluate players that the Patriots might be interested in drafting. This year’s itinerary took him to Alabama, North Carolina State, South Carolina, Georgia, and Ohio State.

"That’s one of the great things about going out in spring, going to talk to Coach [Nick] Saban or Coach [Urban] Meyer, wherever the travels take you to. It’s just interesting to watch somebody else run their practice, how they set up the drills, how they break it down timewise, different things like that. So, that’s good.

A lot of times you talk to people about that and say, ‘Hey, how do you handle this? How do you handle that?’ You’re always looking for better ways to do things and how you can best teach and instruct your players and team most efficiently. We’re always striving to improve that. We talk about it every year. What’s our meeting time? How do we break that up? What’s our practice time? How do we break that up? What’s our walk-through time? When do we watch film? How do we do that? How can we do it better? Should we do it more together? Should we do it in different groups? Should we change the structure of the groups? How much should players watch by themselves? How much should they watch with the coach? How much should they… you know, all those different kinds of things. That’s a continuous self-evaluation that you do as a team to try and find the best way to do things.

HEAD COACH’S OVERALL RESPONSIBILITY

"There’s no set formula for me. I try to coach the entire team because that’s what I’m responsible for. The assistant coaches do a great job in each of their areas, but part of my responsibility is to coordinate the whole thing—offense, defense, special teams, and any other elements of the team that come into it, the conditioning, training and preparation, and so forth. That’s really what my job is.

"It varies from day to day, year to year, situation to situation, where that time is spent. But whatever I do is where I feel I can be the most efficient and help the team the most. Part of that is organizational, making sure that everybody is in a position where they can do their job and be productive in what they’re being asked to do, that they have enough time to do it, that they have the resources to do it, whatever it happens to be. It’s not ‘do this’ or ‘do that,’ it’s ultimately