Fridays with Bill

by John Powers

  PRACTICE vs. GAME

  “Practice is practice. It’s the closest we can get to simulating a game. It’s not game conditions, but it’s as close as we can get. Players that can perform in practice I think have a chance to perform in the game. It’s still another level, it’s another step. But if you can’t do it consistently in practice then it’s pretty unlikely it’s going to happen consistently in a game. That’s true of every position on the field. I can’t think of one that wouldn’t fall into that category. You do what you can do. You make it as realistic as you can, or in some cases maybe you make it a little bit harder where you can in some areas and then the game is the game. It’s a different speed. It’s a different level.”

  COMPETITIVE PRACTICE LEVELS

  “There are some drills that are as competitive as we can make them. There are other drills that are competitive to a point. Obviously we don’t want a defensive back blowing up a receiver to break up a pass and things like that. Then there are other drills that aren’t that competitive. We’re trying to provide a look and we’re trying to not make it a physical type of competition but more of a repetition/execution type of drill. The most important thing is that everybody is practicing at the same tempo. You don’t have one guy playing at one level and another guy playing at another level. We’re all playing at the same level, whatever that is. I think those are your most productive practices.

  “We have drills like one-on-one pass rush or one-on-one coverage or drills like that that are as competitive as you make them. You’re out there trying to beat the other guy, he’s trying to beat you. Then there are other drills that are tempo a little bit below that. It’s competitive to a certain point. Then there are other drills that are really not intended to be competitive. They’re intended more to be teaching and identification, recognition and execution, rather than the competition part of it. Based on what we’re doing, what the drill is, what day of the week it is, what point in the season it is, what point in training camp—it could be any combination of those.”

  PRACTICING BAD SNAPS

  “We do bad-snap drills with the holder and the punter, absolutely. That’s always part of the mental preparation every week. Just to go through those and have the drill where the ball is high, low, on the ground, wobbly, wet-ball drills. We do those periodically.”

  CONTACT IN PRACTICE

  Where NFL rules once had no limits on contact in practice, the league now restricts padded sessions to one per day in training camp and a total of 14 during the regular season, 11 of which must be held during the first 11 weeks. That poses a challenge to coaches to prepare players for games in which every play produces collisions.

  “Practice is just preparation. It’s a necessary part of getting ready for the game. It’s not punishment. It’s preparation. Whatever you can do to get your team prepared, whatever a player can do to prepare to play. Full-speed contact on every single play, every day of the week, at some point it is diminishing returns. It’s counterproductive. I don’t think anybody is in favor of that. But it’s preparation, so you do the best you can as a coach to prepare your team. You do the best you can as a player to prepare yourself or prepare the teammates if you’re working with them and you’re giving them a look at what they’re doing. You’re the scout team, then you’re helping them prepare, just like they help you prepare. That’s the way I see all of that. It’s about preparation. That’s what practice is.”

  The coach signaling his players to decline a penalty during a 2015 rout of the Dolphins. (photo by Jim Davis)

  BRINGING ALONG YOUNG PLAYERS

  “Each week there’s something that’s a little bit new in preparing for the opponent, that’s a little bit different from last week or a little bit different than something we’ve done. We’re not trying to reinvent the defensive system but you add a call or you add an adjustment or you do something to take care of a problem that they’re giving you. Whether they’re giving you a lot of it or maybe they’re not giving you that much of it but when it comes up, here’s how you want to handle it. Those accumulate through the year and for young players that’s part of the process.

  “It’s not just learning the stuff at training camp but learning the adjustments and the additions throughout the year. Some of those you might come back to when that situation from earlier in the season presents itself again. You might come back to that, so that experience is good for them. So do we keep doing more? Yeah, we do, because we have to defend more. To be honest with you, we have to defend more from the offense. You look at any team in the league after seven, eight, nine games, and they’re doing more than they were doing in Week 2 and we’re doing more than we were doing. The multiples add up.”

  LATE-SEASON PRACTICES

  “We’ve taken a lot of snaps when you go all the way back to OTAs and training camp and all of the practices and all of the meetings. Do we need another snap at Ride 34 Bob? I don’t know. We could always use it but we’ve had a lot of them this year. Do we need another snap at a coverage? You try to balance that out. How many more plays versus how much rest, walkthroughs versus practice, pads versus no pads, all of those things. But the more snaps you have, the further along you are. I would say in particular if you’re doing something well then the more confidence you’d have that you’d be able to execute it at a good level. But you can’t stop doing it. I don’t think just sitting on a couch for a week is the way to get ready for a game. Even though you’d be well-rested, you’d leave a lot of other preparation components behind. So there’s some kind of balance in there.

  “Maybe you want a certain amount of rest but you have a certain amount of preparation to do, so where do you draw the line—60/40, 55/45, 70/30, 30/70? You have to make that decision. One thing that comes with having a long week that comes with a short week, to a certain degree you try to either get ahead or maybe get a little more rest in a long week knowing that you have a short week coming up or get further ahead so you don’t have as much to do as you would normally have because you try to push some of it to where you have a little bit more time. Time management and efficiency, combining rest with your work product, it’s all part of it.”

  MISSING PRACTICE

  For NFL clubs, which only play 16 regular season games, practice days are precious. Since the players get one day off, since only one day in pads is permitted, and since Saturdays are limited to walkthroughs, Belichick and his assistants must make the most of every hour of on-field preparation.

  “You still need to practice, you still need timing, you still need to see the plays develop on film. But can everyone take part in all of them? No. But can those guys still go out there and be effective and play? Yeah, I think they can. Is it better for them to practice? I’m sure it is. If everybody’s 100 percent healthy they’d all be out there practicing and that would be better, that would be ideal, but it’s not always [possible]. But I don’t think that means it can’t be functional…. Whoever isn’t practicing, somebody else is in there for them.

  Belichick venting his disbelief and displeasure to the back judge in 2017’s home loss to Carolina. (photo by Jim Davis)

  “You don’t want any player to miss practice, but in the long run it’s a good thing for a player who doesn’t get to play as much to be able to run our plays instead of just running the scout team plays. Whether that’s your eighth or ninth offensive linemen that are sometimes inactive, whether it’s your backup quarterback, whether it’s some of the guys that don’t get a lot of playing time at their positions. If they get a chance to play then it keeps them sharp doing our things rather than always running the other team’s plays. So it’s no different than training camp. If one guy’s out that’s an opportunity for somebody else to get better. When somebody comes back, that just gives us more depth and more people that can participate. Whatever you have you take advantage of it and make the most of it and make it a positive. Whatever the situation is, you make a positive o
ut of it.”

  INJURED PLAYERS RESUMING PRACTICE

  “You have to consider, depending on how long the player has been out, which practice you want to start him back on. Do you want to start him back on a Wednesday, which is a lot of times our most competitive practice with the most contact and the highest speed and the highest tempo? Or if you do it on a Friday then you’re starting him at maybe a little bit lower tempo and see how that goes. Then maybe the practice on the following Wednesday the player has a little more confidence. At least he’s been out there, he’s done it. It’s been at a little bit lower tempo or speed but at least he’s been doing football drills.

  “We can go out there, run in the bubble and do jumping jacks and do sit-ups and run up and down the field, but it’s not the same as reading and reacting and performing your skills as a football player. So going out there and practicing is really the first chance that we get to see that, especially for a player that’s been out. If it’s a guy who played Sunday, didn’t practice Wednesday, practices Thursday, then that’s a different story. But a guy who’s been out two, three, four, five weeks, whatever it is, he needs that time of playing football, not just running through the ropes and hitting a couple bags. You’ve got to have the other 21 guys out there, too.

  “Each case is different. Sometimes you put a player back out there Wednesday. Sometimes you put him back out there Thursday. Sometimes it’s Friday. Sometimes it has to do with his progression. Sometimes it’s the tempo. Sometimes it’s other circumstances that come into play so there’s no set ‘It’s always this way.’ It’s A) when the player’s ready, and B) once he’s cleared medically to do it then it becomes a coaching decision as to when to do it or how to do it. Maybe you put him out there on Wednesday and you just let him do scout.”

  GAUGING INJURED PLAYERS’ READINESS

  “You can see more in practice than you can see in a walkthrough but practice isn’t game speed. It’s the best we have and you go by what you see. Over time, through experience and watching players and watching different tempos in practice, you get a gauge for it—and it’s nothing specific. I don’t even know if I could sit here and tell you exactly what it is, but I think you look at it and sometimes you say, ‘Nope, I just don’t think it’s there.’ And other times you say, ‘Yeah, I think it is.’ And sometimes you come off the field on Friday and say, ‘I don’t really think he can do it.’ But then on Sunday you go out there and work out before the game and it looks different. And those 48 hours, or close to 48 hours, make a difference and things change. So that happens, too.

  The coaching whistle at the ready during a playoff practice during the 2005 season. (photo by Jonathan Wiggs)

  “Every situation’s different and there’s no set formula for making decisions. At least I don’t have one…. It’s inexact. We only play at game speed once a week, and then we have a lot of practice opportunities during the course of the week on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or sometimes more than that in training camp and preseason. You just go by what you see. You talk to the position coach, you talk to the strength coach, you talk to the player, and with that whole composite you come up with some kind of decision. Maybe you put him out there on Wednesday and you just let him do scout team stuff and if that goes okay then you let him take his offensive or defensive reps on Thursday. There’re 100 different scenarios.”

  INJURED PLAYER AVAILABILITY

  “If a player has an injury, you rehab the injury until the injury is at a point where he can begin activity. Once he begins activity and there are no setbacks then you increase the level of activity until the player is ready to participate in mainstream with the rest of the team. Once he is ready to do that and he has demonstrated, [through] all the steps along the way, that he is ready to do that, then you put him into those situations, whether it’s on a limited or full basis…. It doesn’t matter if it’s a wrist, an elbow, a shoulder, a knee. It’s the same process and you just take those different steps along the way.

  “Sometimes it goes like that. Sometimes it dips. Sometimes it levels off. It’s very unpredictable, just like all of us when we don’t feel good. We want to feel better and sometimes you feel better the next day and sometimes it takes two days. Sometimes it’s a week. Sometimes it’s two weeks. The next time you get a cold, we should say, ‘When is this player going to be ready? When’s he going to feel good? When’s he going to be right?’ Next time you get sick, you tell me the exact day that you’re going to feel good and we’ll make sure that you are confident and positive you can hit that target. It’s impossible. You just take it day to day. What else can you do?”

  DETERMINING ACTIVE PLAYERS

  Though NFL teams carry 53 players on their rosters, only 46 are eligible to play in each game. Clubs must announce their seven inactive players 90 minutes before kickoff. The time when Belichick and his staff make their decision fluctuates from week to week.

  “It varies. Sometimes you know on Friday that the player is just not going to be ready. All the indications are there. But there are other times that you truly don’t know. If they’re definitely not going to play then we list them as ‘out’ on the injury list. Or if we think it’s really a long, long, long shot then we list them as ‘doubtful.’ If we don’t know, then we list them as ‘questionable.’ In the next 48 hours between now and kickoff on Sunday, that’s when that question mark gets answered. Sometimes they play, sometimes they don’t. Or sometimes they can play but we elect not to play them for whatever the reasons are. Sometimes they just physically can’t play. It could be any of the above.”

  INJURED PLAYERs’ INPUT

  “The players want to play. So not very often is a player going to tell you, ‘I don’t want to play.’ Usually it’s more along the lines of, ‘I want to play, I can do these things.’ Sometimes they tell you, ‘I can’t do these other things.’ Sometimes you have to figure that out for yourself. Because a player wants to play, he won’t mention, ‘I don’t really feel confident cutting to my left—I can play, I’ll be all right.’ My job is to do what I feel is best for the team and try to figure out if what he can do is good enough or if we’re going to be able to accept that for the good of the team. Not that he won’t give us his best—just, what is [his best]?”

  EMERGENCY BACKUPS

  “It could depend on what the game plan is or what the role is. Sometimes when you put a player into that position you realize that you’re not going to ask him to do everything that you ask the player that normally plays the position to do. So if we have to make this personnel move then we’ll be limited in these certain ways and here’s how we’ll work around that. Or maybe we don’t work around that. It depends on what it is. But that comes up somewhere in every game. It’s one thing to sit here and talk about it on Friday. It’s another thing to talk about it Sunday afternoon at two o’clock when somebody’s out and now it’s an unanticipated move. Then it’s, ‘Okay, here’s the next person we’d put in.’ But what if something happens after that?

  Belichick scrutinizes the action during the 2016 victory at Buffalo that avenged the earlier home loss. (photo by Barry Chin)

  “I would say the higher degree of difficulty comes in the situational defenses depending on what your depth is, things like goal-line or dime or sub-defense. You have 66 spots on special teams, right? Eleven in six different units, so that’s 66 players. You can’t have 66 backups, so you’ve got to have one guy that might back up four or five things. If something happens to somebody then that one person gets plugged in. Then once you have that second injury it’s a real scramble.

  “Sometimes it affects your game plan, and sometimes you put the player in and you can run your game plan but sometimes you’re limited in what you can do. For example, if you put an offensive lineman in for a tight end you’d have to change some things in the passing game. Maybe in protection, maybe not in the running game, possibly, or vice versa. If you put another receiver in the game may
be you can run the same passes but you lose that blocker if it was a tight end. You just have to work around that.”

  SENSING A GOOD WEEK OF PREPARATION

  “You see the team is alert on different situations. They see things. They know what we want to do against it. They get it executed and then it comes up in the game and you’re able to do it. Or you get something a little bit different and they’re alert and they make the adjustment to it. ‘That’s sort of like what we practiced, but not quite.’ Here’s something that’s a little bit different and they’re able to make that adjustment, whether it’s individually or collectively, two or three guys having to see it and adjust to it.

  “Those are good signs, when you go out there to practice and the things you talked about in meetings, the things you walked through, the things you’ve shown on film, when you present them… they handle it properly. If it’s a little bit different, not quite the way you talked about it, they’re able to make those adjustments and sort it out. So if you see that on Sunday some of those situations come up and if you’re able to handle those as a carryover of what you’ve seen during the week of practice and preparation, that’s a good sign.”

  PRIORITIZING INSTRUCTIONS

  “You always want to prioritize what’s important because by the end of the week we’re sitting here on Friday or Saturday and every player has been told 1,000 things. ‘Do this. Do that. When this happens, do this. When that happens, do that. If they do this, you’re going to check to that. Read this guy. Read that guy.’ He’s got 1,000 things in his mind and I think it’s important to boil it back down to, ‘Okay, those are all techniques and they’re all adjustments and they’re things we need to do but what do we need to do to win this game? Let’s make sure we’ve got first things first.’