Bill Belichick Lay Quotations

I'm sure that any current or past player of mine would tell you that the balls we practice with are as bad as they can be: wet, sticky, cold, slippery. However bad we can make them, I make them. Any time that players complain about the quality of the footballs, I make them worse and that stops the complaining.

I'm not going to be able to talk about the people who are involved specifically in any ongoing judicial process. We do the same thing with all our players. We take a look, as I said, at their personal family life, we look at the history of what they've done in high school and college.

Some guys, football comes really easy to them; they can see what all 22 players are doing, can see what all 11 guys are doing on their side of the ball, how it all fits together. It's easy for them.

As part of the process, there are a lot of different ways to evaluate players. There are a number of different companies and things out there that do different things; that have different ways of evaluating and those types of tests and so forth.

That has never been a priority for me and I want the players to deal with a harder situation in practice than they'll ever have to deal with in the game. Maybe that's part of our ball security philosophy.

I could tell you that in my entire coaching career I have never talked to any player, staff member about football air pressure. That is not a subject that I have ever brought up.

Whatever success I've had it is because I've tried to understand the situation of the player. I think the coach's duty is to avoid complicating matters.

I cannot comment on any player who has ongoing criminal charges and legal situations.

My personal coaching philosophy, my mentality, has always been to make things as difficult as possible for players in practice, however bad we can make them, I make them.

You definitely go through a stage, most coaches do, where you see a good player and you get enamored, you really like what the player does, but then when you put him into your system, it's not quite the same player that he was in another system. He has some strengths, but you cant utilize all those strengths. If you try to utilize all his strengths, you end up weakening a lot of other players who are already in your system.

You can play hard. You can play aggressive. You can give 120% but if one guy is out of position then someone is running through the line of scrimmage and he is going to gain a bunch of yards.

In short, we accumulate all the information that we can accumulate, wherever that information comes from, and try to analyze it and make the best decision we can make for our football team on a case-by-case basis. It's the same for every single player; the process is the same.

That always helps. More importantly than that, I think the players that are playing have played better.

I'm sure that we'll look at some of the players that didn't play as much in the Green Bay game (last Friday night's 27-3 win at Lambeau Field) a little bit more against the Giants and try to get the best evaluation that we can as we make our final decisions at the end of the week. I'm sure that the players who didn't play as much against Green Bay will play more than the ones who did play quite a bit against Green Bay. Let's put it that way.

I'm sure our younger players will play a bit more than they did in the Green Bay game,

We're looking at another really good football team this week in Denver. They're probably one of the hotter teams in the league right now. They're playing very well in all three phases of the game. They've been a good team to watch just because they're executing so well. They haven't had a turnover in three games.

I felt that once we got to the 31, 32 yard line, we were in field goal range. We didn't want to get in the situation where we throw a couple incomplete passes and Pittsburgh had another timeout. It's like basketball; we were playing for the last shot.

He was a guy who was able to go hard and run hard on virtually every single play of the game. It didn't make any difference if it was the fourth quarter, in the middle of a two-minute drive, or the third play of the game. He was always very, very close to his top speed. ... Even if he had good players covering him, he'd wear them down.

You get into the situation where you have an experienced player that gives you a certain quality of play, and you have a younger player who you think is going to be better but he's not better now,

Right now, we're up against one of the hottest teams in the league. Miami is playing as good as anybody, and they've played very well lately, at home and on the road....We have our hands full.

But again, I think that's consistent with his philosophy, ... Whatever Al's philosophy is, it's been pretty consistent through the years, be it the type of players he gets to play corner(back), the coaches, their style of play, what he wears. It's all consistent.

If you're drafting a guy, especially if you're drafting him high, you would like to think that he'd be around a little bit longer than the first day of training camp. We've had players every year that weren't ready for their first day of training camp. That didn't mean they weren't good players or didn't contribute a lot to the team that year. I don't think that's the final evaluation.

We thought it would be in the best interests of the team to be in here. This is probably similar to the conditions we'll be playing in, in terms of wind.

Maybe we can put a ball and chain on him. That would slow him down, ... He's never out of the play. There's a lot of plays that he makes that you actually see him getting blocked and you think, Oh, that was a pretty good job, and then he still ends up on the ball somewhere.

One of the things we wanted to do today was play competitively against a good football team. Obviously, it came right down to the last play. I was proud of the way our players fought. We had a lot of opportunities for a lot of people to play. This was really our last opportunity to do that, so we tried to take advantage of that.

Obviously, we're disappointed. We weren't able to make the plays we needed to make to win, that's why we didn't win.

Our offensive line did a pretty good job last night. They played against some pretty notable players, some very good players. Yes, we had some trouble. I think they had some trouble, too. We blocked them and there were times where we couldn't get them blocked. Again, that was a pretty good group. I thought our offensive line played very competitively.

Pittsburgh's one of the hottest, most formidable teams in the league. Right now we're up against one of the hottest teams in the league. Miami is playing as good as anybody is.

Chad is improving a little bit every day, like a lot of our newer players are, ... I don't think he's ever really played this position. But he's a smart guy. He picked it up well and he's a good football player.

The Denver Broncos will be our toughest challenge this season. To have any chance, it will take our best game and certainly a lot better performance than the last time we played them.

Fifteen years ago, it wouldn't have been the case. When you don't have free agency and all of that, then you can keep the player in your system and keep developing him and keep him as long as you want. Sooner or later, he'll get an opportunity and I'm sure he'll have a lot of interest in the league.

Do you think we're going to win many games playing like this? ... This won't be good enough. It wasn't good enough today and it won't be good enough against anybody else either.

Do you think we're going to win any more games playing like this? We can't play like this. We have to play better. We have to coach better. This won't be good enough . . . against anyone we play.

Do you think we're going to win any more games playing like this? ... We can't play like this.

I don't care what happened last week, last year, last month, what the overall record between the two teams was going back to 1947 or whenever they started playing each other, or who wins when the wind is blowing in from the north. I pay attention to what the matchups are for each individual game.

There are 11 people out there playing defense. What makes a difference is how those 11 people play. That's what defense is about. It's about team defense. You are always trying to isolate it into one player, one situation or one thing, and it just doesn't work that way.

That is the good news. The bad news is that there are a lot of things that he has to perfect technique-wise to be able to utilize all of those things. We'll see how it all comes together. We'll have to decide exactly what the best way try to use him is and also how that works in with the other skill players that we have on offense and how the whole thing meshes together. It is a long process, but he is a good guy to work with.

Really, that's the best we've played in the red area all year long. We made a couple of stops after a sudden change, after we turned the ball over offensively. We came in there and didn't let them score a touchdown. We held them, based on the field position that we had, so, I mean, there were some positives to build on.

It's hard to get four quarterbacks the amount of reps that are really productive. You know, we've got two players that really haven't played any football at all for this organization and we're going to have to make some kind of evaluation on where they are. And the only way to evaluate them is to see them play.

He's fast and he has good range for the safety position and he's done a good job as a contact player both in hitting and tackling and forcing the run when he's been asked to.

If a player has a lot of longevity and production, you're looking at two factors -- skill and durability,

Honestly, we went through this at the end last year with the San Francisco game (and the starters played most of the game). Were treating this like a regular week ... I don't think anybody else really knows any other way to do it around here?. I don't think the players do. I don't think the coaches do. It's football season. Maybe I'll see it differently next week. I don't know.

We're certainly giving up too many big plays in the passing game, ... Some of it was the technique ... our judgment on the ball, sometimes we just didn't use our help, or where our help was supposed to be, it didn't get there quick enough. ... Some of it is tied into the rush, the timing of the rush, when the ball is thrown. ... The quarterback stands back there and pumps three or four times, that's hard for anybody to cover those routes. We just need better overall team defense.

He (Moss) pretty much has all the skill you could look for in a receiver. He can do it all, intermediate routes, deep routes, makes plays after the catch. Just an exceptional athlete.

That was a great experience for me, working with Joe, ... It was my first real exposure to the 3-4, and the way that Joe played the 3-4 was a lot different than the way we played it in New York (under Bill Parcells) a couple of years later.

That was a game of big plays tonight. Denver made more than we did.

You can?t create players. You have to draft the board based on what your options are. As soon as you start taking players truly based on need, if they can?t fill that need, then you have to come back the next year or the next pick and you?re drafting again for the same spot and you haven?t filled anything other than putting a name on a piece of cardboard and putting it up on the depth chart.

As a football team, they completely outplayed us tonight. They made the plays and we certainly didn't make them.

No. I wouldn't say so. The guys played last year against San Francisco.

We have to advance scout all three of them. There are other people in the organization that are taking care of that. It's not really something that the coaches and the players are all that concerned about.

How will it be going forward? We'll just have to see how that all plays itself out. That's something we'll talk about later on depending on what the situation is.

Bavaro's probably as tough of a - physically and mentally as tough a football player as I've ever coached. So, I would put him in the rare category there.

I grew up watching my dad scout games live. They played on Saturday. Sometimes they wouldn't get the films until Monday. Sunday air shipping from wherever the college team was located - Starkville, Mississippi, or wherever the film was coming from. It took two days.

It was kind of like basketball. We were playing for the last shot there. If we make it, we make it. If we don't, time expired and we're in overtime.

It was kind of like a basketball game. We were playing for the last shot.

We're going to do what we think is best. What we did against Oakland may or may not be what we think is best against Carolina. Last year we played Indianapolis in one type of a defense. We played Pittsburgh in another type of a defense. We played Philadelphia in another type of a defense. We're going to do what we think we need to do to try to match up and stop the opponents. I'm not making any promises to anything or anybody about what we're going to do.

We played guys to get them experience, get them out there to play.

We played guys to get experience so they will be better prepared to play if they are called upon.

He had some good players to go against in Kimo von Oelhoffen and Joey Porter. Some plays weren?t so good, but I thought he was competitive. He?s been playing both sides for us all year.

I'm proud of the team. The players played hard and I thought they played well and made the plays they needed to make to win the game.

I have all the respect in the world for Rodney Harrison. I told him that when we brought him here, and he's made great contributions to this team. There's no question about it. Unfortunately, he had a tough setback last weekend and so did the team, but that's the way it is. We're playing San Diego this week. Unfortunately, he won't be with us. I wish he was, but he's not.

I think he's been very productive in preseason. He's shown a lot of explosion and power. He looks a lot better in three-technique than he did as a 3-4 defensive end last year. He's probably playing with more confidence and maybe a little bit more energy. But when you have Ted Washington on one side and Kelly or Hamilton on the other side, (Sapp's) usually isolated on that guard and he's a handful.

I think, for the most part, you're looking at players who are in roles, or situations, as probably being the swing guys on those numbers. I don't know if the geniuses referred to that or not. Probably not,

That's a tough position to play. It's a lot like playing corner. You're put there on an island. It's not all that easy to give a left tackle help. A lot of times you can't give him help . . . To play out there, on the blind side of the quarterback, and still be physical in the running game, it's a tough spot to play.

Any time a player goes from one system to another, one thing that could be a problem is breaking old habits. It's not that you don't understand what the new responsibilities or plays are, but just the fact that you've been doing something a long time - it's a habit - and that's not what's required in the other system. And that means kind of undoing something before you can even start to do something new.

Any players that haven't been in the playoffs need to do everything they've done before and more to try to prepare. You can't simulate a playoff game in practice. You can't simulate it anywhere.

He was a very good special teams player with the Giants when he came out. He runs well. He's pretty athletic in the open field. He has some playing strength and some power. He's a pretty instinctive special teams player.

There certainly haven't been many times in the last few years where you release a player and say, 'Well, this guy couldn't help us. This guy just couldn't do anything,' ... It's more a case of you have a few spots and you have more people than you do spots. So then you have to make a decision as to where you want your depth. Do you want it on the offensive line, do you want it in the kicking game, do you want it in the secondary, do you want it at tackle, do you want it at receiver, do you want it at quarterback?

Obviously it was a game where they made more plays than we did. I congratulate Mike and the Denver Broncos. They are a good football team. They earned the right to play here (Saturday) and they played well.

Obviously, it says a lot for the player and what he's been able to accomplish: No. 1, the skill of the player and, No. 2, his durability. He's carried the ball a lot and he's carried it very effectively. He has a running style that can work in a lot of different ways with his speed, his power, his quickness, and his run vision. It's a very significant individual accomplishment.

As usual, Tom played his best football when it counted.

He has some experience playing in the league,

He has outstanding ball skills. He's a smart player. He anticipates well. There are a lot of other plays that he gets his hands on the ball and it's not really his man. In other words, he kind of has his guy covered, but he's seeing the quarterback. He sees the ball thrown and then he breaks on the ball . . . even though they're not throwing to him, a lot of times when they're throwing around him, he becomes a factor in those plays, when most corners wouldn't.

He does a great job from week to week of matching up his players against your defensive weaknesses. And he also adds little, different wrinkles to it.

These players, I can't tell you how proud of them I am, ... They've just been awesome. They've faced every team's toughest competition every week. I pushed them hard. I demanded a lot. They've worked so hard and never made excuses when they lost or played poorly.

This is our best opportunity to pull everything together in terms of substitution, communication, execution, playing on the road, playing in a hostile environment, all of those kinds of things.

There is an old saying about the strength of the wolf is the pack, and I think there is a lot of truth to that. On a football team, it’s not the strength of the individual players, but it is the strength of the unit and how they all function together.

Maybe they played on their feet in high school, or as a freshman or sophomore in college, and then they got bigger and went down to the defensive line. Sometimes there is something to go back on there -- not always, but occasionally.

Anything any other player would do, that's what he's going to do

It was pretty much a replay of the Denver game. We spotted them the lead early and it was too much to make up against a good team. We just got too far (behind) too early and it was too far to come back from.

I think any player that hasn't played football for a while, and then comes back and tries to catch up to a lot of guys who have been playing on a regular basis, they're behind. They have to be. If they weren't, then we should cancel all the practices and just show up for the game.

We didn't make the plays we need to win. There's not much more to say. It's hard to win when you give the ball away.

Every player that dresses for the game, I've told them to be ready to go for 60 minutes just like it's a regular-season game.

They played well, ... They played a good football game. They played better then we did. They deserved to win. They outplayed us. They outcoached us. They outperformed us.

We are disappointed. We didn't make as many plays as them, and there is not much more I can say.

We'll get a good evaluation of where we are going against a different type of team than we played last week in Cincinnati. We'll have some different challenges that we'll have to meet. They?re a good team and they have a lot of talent.

We're treating this like a regular week. Put it in the headline. Bold type. It's a regular week. The players know that, the staff knows it.

I've told everybody to be ready to go. I'm sure that we'll look at some of the players that didn't play as much in the Green Bay game a little bit more against the Giants and try to get the best evaluation that we can as we make our final decisions at the end of the week. I'm sure that the younger players and the players who didn't play as much against Green Bay will play more than the ones who did play quite a bit against Green Bay. Let's put it that way.

He's played safety. He's played in (the Dolphins') sub defense. He's played down in a linebacker type of role. He has some flexibility and has played in the kicking game.

And I understood that in an age where there was so much ego, because of the camera, that it was very important to look for that kind of player, ... I began to look for the kind of player that doesn't need his ego fed by stardom, but will do what he's supposed to do because he knows the game and loves the game, and will do the job the right way even if someone else gets the glory.

We need to play better. What else is there (to say)? We aren't going to win many games playing like this.

There was no doubt about it out there today, San Diego is the better team. We didn't make any of the plays we needed to in the second half. They made an awful lot, especially in the second half.

There were certainly some very questionable decisions in that game. I'm surprised that was a playoff crew.

I thought there were some good things defensively. It was nice to see the turnovers. I thought we played more competitively in the running game and on third down. But we've only been in camp for three weeks. It's not like we're three or four months down the road.

I knew we could play better than we did early in the season. It's a credit to the players that they've turned things around.

They're 12-4. If the playoffs weren't set up the way they were, they'd probably be playing at home, (but) they're in the same division as Indianapolis.

A lot of guys you?re looking at in college haven?t played on their feet and on first and second down, that?s probably where they would be playing for us. We?re looking at projecting guys who were down, to projecting them up to playing on their feet and that?s definitely a conversion.

I enjoy the competition of all the games. I love to coach and be in a competitive situation where we're up against the greatest players and the greatest coaches on a weekly basis. It's very challenging but it's very exciting, and that?s true every week.

I think they're doing a great job all the way across the board. I think there are a lot of positives in the way the team has played. Nick has done a great job after that Cleveland game, whatever he's done in bringing them together. They're playing well.

The running back situation is a good, competitive one. I think Antowain and Kevin are good players, have good, solid strengths. I think both of those players are going to be productive for us. They have been in the past. How exactly it's going to work out, I don't know. I'm sure it will be decided on the field. We'll do what we think is best for the team.