Rich Eisen: Thanks for joining us, Coach. We appreciate it.
Bill Belichick: It's a pleasure to be on.
Eisen: So let's talk about your pick, Laurence Maroney. What's the
thinking process behind that?
Belichick: We had very high grades on Laurence and we feel
like he can be a real productive player for us in our system. We first saw
Laurence last year when we were evaluating Marion Barber. He's an
outstanding player. Very productive—good speed, good
runner. We like our running backs—we have some very talented players at that
position—but they're getting up there in terms of experience and it's good
to add a young player that we feel like we can work with and integrate into
the system now.
Mike Mayock: When you anticipated this draft
over the last few days, did you think that you'd have a choice between, say
Manny Lawson, Chad Jackson, your pick Maroney? It was heavy defense for
a while. Were you happy the way the cards played out?
Belichick: Well, we just kind of sat back and
let it come to us, Mike. In the end, I think that the value for Laurence
was—in our opinion—very good, and that's why we made that selection. There
are a lot of other good players on the board that we're interested in that
I'm sure will be very good players in this league, but we felt like that was
the best pick, both for his value and his performance. And also to help our
football team.
Mayock: Bill, you have four of the first
86 draft picks today. Does this lend itself—this particular draft—to a
strength in any one area? Where do you think you can take advantage of
it moving up or down?
Belichick: That's a good question, Mike. We're
always open to that. I think that having extra picks gives you the
flexibility to be able to work the board, not only in the first round but in
later rounds. We'll just see how that plays itself out with whatever
opportunities come our way. But we're excited about those picks and
hopefully we can improve our football team with those opportunities, one way
or another. I'm just not sure how it's going to play out yet.
Mayock: You've been snakebit a little bit with the cornerback
position the last couple years—your safeties and a
little bit with the linebackers—with injuries. Are you happy with what you
did in the offseason? What do you have to do to become a better team in
that back seven or back eight?
Belichick: Well, I think there are a lot of
things we can do better. Let's start with the coaching. Maybe I can coach a
little better; I think that'll help us out more than anything. But we can
use depth at every position on the football team, so whenever we get an
opportunity to add players that we feel like can contribute to our system
that's what we'll do. But that pretty much goes across the board.
Mayock: Well Bill, we know how busy you are.
Thanks for taking time. Get back in your War Room and we'll talk to you a
little later.
Belichick: OK. It's always a pleasure, Mike.
Thank you. |
