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Glenn Ordway: Let me ask you this, as we take a peek at this draft, because I've heard it mentioned a couple of times in the last couple of days, and you even joked about it – 'a Bill Belichick draft without defensive linemen, offensive linemen, [or] tight end[s]' – in any way did you change your approach to this draft? I mean, you look at what the needs were of the team, and certainly that was stuff that you went for early, was it a change in philosophy or was it just that's what was on the board?
Bill Belichick: No, Glenn, that's just the way it worked out. I just said it as a joke, really, because we've drafted…I mean, everybody knows how much I love defensive linemen, and you can never have too many tight ends and you can never have too many big guys. But I've been saying 'getting faster and younger on defense' since '01, so I don't think the philosophy's changed at all. We just hit it right on a couple picks. And, of course, early in the draft. It was great to be out at the top of the draft for the right reasons – because we were there on a trade, not on our record – and to have the opportunity to take a player like Jerod Mayo. So that was good fortune. And this was a deep draft in cornerbacks – I think we all knew that going into it – and being able to pick up [Terrence] Wheatley at the end of the second [round] and [Jonathan] Wilhite down the line there in the fourth [round] were both good values and guys that…you know, there were a lot of other cornerbacks going in those ranges, too. I think right when we took Wheatley, [Terrell] Thomas went right behind him. So they were kind of flying around right in there. Kind of the same thing with Wilhite. So I think that was just part of the depth of the draft.
Steve DeOssie: Bill, how much of the draft was planned and how much of it was reaction to what was going on around you?
Belichick: I think it's just about always reaction, I really do. You just never know how things are going to come out, and the third round was a good example. I was talking to Shawn Crable on the phone, telling him that we were getting ready to take him there on our first pick in the third round, and Scott [Pioli] was on the other phone – San Diego called in and they offered us a trade that included their second-round pick next year. So I quickly put Crable on hold…
[Laughter]
Belichick: …and said, 'Well look, let me get right back to you here, we've got something else going.' So we ended up making that trade and then taking Shawn a few picks later, at I think it was 78. So that's really about as reactive as you can be. We were literally within probably two minutes of turning in his name on that earlier pick. So, you just never know how that's going to happen. [Matt] Slater, we kind of saw him slide in the fifth [round] and we felt like if we waited till the end of the round that that was kind of the range where those fast players were going, and good special team players. So we just, rather than take a chance on it, we moved up in the fifth and took him.
Ordway: How different was the way you dealt with this, where you were talking about the reaction, in that you had a much shorter time in between picks? This was a quick first couple of rounds.
Belichick: It was, Glenn. I know people think you only have five minutes in Rounds 3-7, so what's the big deal if you have ten minutes in Round 1? It just seems like there are more moving parts. The trades are…there's more at stake, and there's just more conversation back and forth and sometimes a lot more negotiations. So the quicker pace this year I think affected a lot of teams who were thinking about trading – we were one of them, New Orleans was another one of them, and we talked about that. I talked to Sean Payton on Friday afternoon. And I know Scott had some conversations with him, as well. When we were on the clock and even the pick before when the Jets were on the clock, we talked quickly with New Orleans. And I think everybody kind of had the sense. We certainly felt like they were coming up for [Sedrick] Ellis and we were happy when Mayo was still there at 10.
Scott Zolak: Coach, in relation to your schemes, what were some of the things that Jerod Mayo, some of the traits that he had that stood out as opposed to some of the other linebackers within the draft?
Belichick: I think one of the things that makes Jerod unique really, even compared to a lot of the linebackers that have come out in previous drafts, is his versatility. He's a big, physical player. He's a hard hitter, he's good against the run, he plays downhill into the line of scrimmage – he has a lot of tackles at the line or a lot of times in the backfield. He runs well, he's very explosive – not only can he run in the 4.5 range, but he's got a good short burst and he can really accelerate in the first 5-10 yards. So he's a good player on the run but he can get out of the box and play out in space – he's a good open-field player – and he's got good power and can blitz. So he can really play either spot inside. I think he can play a variety of spots in our sub defense – he can blitz, he can cover, he can play the run. He's just a good all-around player with a lot of variety of skills and not just a run guy and not just a speed guy, but a player with a good combination. So I think that's kind of what set him apart from a lot of other guys that we've considered.
Pete Sheppard: Coach, we've been getting a lot of calls over the last couple of days about Jamie Silva, the BC safety. Where was he on your board, and did you ever have any thoughts at all about drafting him? And were you surprised that he didn't get drafted?
Belichick: Well, we took [Brandon] Meriweather last year, so really safety wasn't a high priority for us this year on the board. And the fact was, there really weren't that many of them anyway. [Kenny] Phillips went in the first round, and then a couple guys, but it wasn't a lot of depth in the draft board. Silva's a good player and there are a lot of good players in the draft, we just felt like we had other players rated a little bit higher at the times when we were picking.
DeOssie: You obviously had Terrence Wheatley highly rated. What does he bring to the table?
Belichick: He has a lot of strengths, Steve. He's a real smart kid – he's been an All-Academic pick and all that in the Big 12. He's fast – he's track guy – he's had very good production on kick returns. Good hands, a bunch of interceptions. He's got very quick feet. And he can cover. He's shown good toughness support in the run in returning kicks and playing in the kicking game. I think one of the things that probably hurt his draft situation a little bit was a wrist injury that he had a year ago; but he played with it all year and really didn't have any problems with it. So I don't know, I think that might have knocked him down a little bit. But he's been a productive player – three-and-a-half year starter out there at Colorado – returned kicks and intercepted, I don't know, 10, 11, 12 passes, whatever it was. He's been a productive player.
Ordway: Bill, when you're trying to formulate your roster and your depth chart going forward here, and you've already signed some other guys and you're probably going to bring some others in here in the weeks to come, how do you sit there and assess what you're going to be able to get out of the players that you picked up in the draft? How long does it take, and then how does that affect decisions you make in, let's say, bringing in another cornerback or another linebacker or somebody else at a position? Because maybe that guy's not going to be able to give you a lot of reps early on.
Belichick: As far as the draft goes, I think you look at a player, player X, and you say, 'OK, what is this player going to do for us? He's going to be, whatever, he's going to be our fourth linebacker, he's going to play in the kicking game, and he'll never become a starter. But he'll be a solid player on the team.' Well, that's a certain grade. Another grade would be a guy who's not ready to be a starter yet but we think in a year or two he'll develop into a starter. Well, that would give him a little higher grade than the last guy. Then there's a guy who's going to come in and he's going to be a legitimate starter – he has the qualities that we're looking for and we feel like once he learns the system, he'll start. Then you have another player who you say, 'Well, we'd love to have this guy compete. We're not sure if he's going to make our team or not. He might make it, he might not. At the worst, he'd be a practice squad player.' Well, that puts him into another category. So, when you start drafting for value…a certain player that wherever we think he fits – then, of course, we're not always right about that, we're just making the best estimate that we can – then that's where the value comes in. Obviously, as we get more experience with those players and put them on the field and start practicing with them and playing them in preseason and all that, those evaluations may change. But that's why they're drafted where they are. Nobody drafts a guy in the seventh round and expects they're getting a starter, but sometimes it works out that way. And sometimes you draft guys at the top of the draft and think they're going to start for you and in a year or two they're off your team. So it's certainly an inexact science. And we all know that.
Ordway: So how much early on in the draft, especially when they need to learn that…let's say a defensive player that needs to learn your system – and people have talked about it being a fairly complex system – how much does that play in to drafting a guy in that first or second round, that he better be a quick learner, a guy that you feel confident that can pick up that system? Where he could be the greatest athletic specimen in the world, three years down the road he still can't break your starting lineup.
Belichick: Well, exactly. I think when you take a player, you've got to make sure that the player's going to be able to pick up your system mentally, number one, [and] that physically he could do what you're going to ask him to do. You know, I know the system, but I can't do it, so that's no good either. And then you've got to make sure the player doesn't have some other situation that's overriding, like a medical thing or some type of a character issue or something like that that you just don't want to deal with. So, provided the player has the ability to mentally pick it up but physically do the skills that you're going to ask him to do – for example, our offensive guards and centers are more athletic and a little bit smaller than some teams because we run screen plays and we pull them and stuff like that, and pass protection is a little bit different because of the way we pull guys out and so forth compared to some teams that play with 340-, 350-pound guards that are zone-blocking teams that never really ask those guys to pull-and-run. So it depends on the type of skills that you're looking for at a certain position. But certainly the mental part of it and the physical part of it, and then all those other things could be a reason to eliminate a player or not take him so high that you feel like there's a risk there, like if there's a medical risk or that there's a risk as to whether or not he can learn your system, then you're probably better off taking somebody where that risk isn't there at that high point in the draft and take a look at those players later on where your exposure is less.
Zolak: Coach, you take a quarterback in the third round, Kevin O'Connell. Did what happened in the second round – that little bit of a run with Chad Henne and Brian Brohm going back-to-back to Green Bay and Miami – did that speed up the process for you guys to snag him in the third?
Belichick: No, I don't think so, Scott. I think the value we had on Kevin was…it probably would have been about that regardless of whether Henne was or wasn't taken. You know, he could have gone in the first round – I don't think it really made too much difference. Kind of that key point in the draft for us, and I'm sure for every team, came Saturday night. Those first 63 picks go off the board and then you kind of start all over again like you do going into Saturday. You take a look at what's left, and some positions are deeper than others – not necessarily the same ones as you had going into Saturday – and you look at the value of the players and the grades on them and you kind of see which guys are at the top of your list. And you take between Saturday night and Sunday morning to talk about and kind of go through different scenarios and make sure you feel like you're not only getting a high value player but sometimes you might have two players there and you feel like, well, for us to get both of them we need to take player A before player B because if we take player B first, player A definitely won't be there the next time we pick. You know, that type of thing. So that's really kind of how it unfolded with Crable and O'Connell there in the third round, and we ended up trading that other third round pick of course to San Diego. But when you recalibrate after Saturday night, there's usually a lot of times a very aggressive nature by all the teams in the league to try to get those couple guys that they have graded a lot higher than everybody else at the start of that third round, or in the past, it was the start of the fourth round.
DeOssie: Bill, how much does this team need for your top draft choices to contribute this year for success of the team?
Belichick: Well, I don't know, Steve, we won 18 out of 19 games last year without any of these guys on the team, so I don't think this team feels like we can't win a game. But at the same time you'd like for them to come in and…it's just a question of how quickly they can learn the system and be able to establish a role for themselves on this football team. But we've got a lot of good players and guys that have been working hard in the offseason that are going to be ready to go. And for these kids to come in and outperform them is going to take a lot! And we'll give them the chance to do it, but ultimately we'll play the best players. We know last year we cut a fourth-round draft choice. So if the players that we draft are better than some of the guys that are here, then that's competition on the field. If they're not, then they're not. You know, that's up to them; I don't really have much control over that.
DeOssie: Does the drafting of these two linebackers in the first three rounds, does that affect your relationship or your ideas with Junior Seau at all?
Belichick: No, I don't think so. I think Junior's experience and his role will be a lot different than anybody else we have. I don't think we could replicate that with a rookie in a lot of ways. So I think that decision, really, is independent of who's here. It's more a function of Junior's situation and what his role would be here for us. Again, you know as well as I do, any veteran player, I don't think, is afraid of competition from a rookie. I think that's pretty fair [to say] for most veterans.
Sheppard: Coach, getting back to Kevin O'Connell real quick. Two-part question real quick. Who does he most remind you of, A, and B, is it hard to assess a guy like O'Connell when he's playing in front of a bad offensive line and puts up decent numbers but not great numbers? Is that difficult to do?
Belichick: Well, on the one hand I think it's challenging. As you know, it's hard for a quarterback to get into a rhythm and be functional in a passing game when a lot of time there's guys running free right at the middle as soon as you get the snap. But on the other hand, it show you what kind of decision making the quarterback has in terms of protecting the ball and throwing it away and getting out of trouble and all that. So I think it's good both ways – you can see him run around, you can see him avoid the rush, you can see him make decisions under pressure, and sometimes you wish…you know, the protection wasn't always bad. There were plenty of times when he could go back there and look it over and make a good decision both. So you get to see both things. Who does he remind me of? Size-wise he's a big guy. He's like a Carson Palmer-looking guy, a Scott Zolak-looking guy…
[Crosstalk about Zolak]
Belichick: Big frame, good arms…
[Laughter and crosstalk]
Zolak: Let him go, he was rolling!
Belichick: But he's fast. I mean, he's fast – he's a legitimate 4.6-type of guy. But he's not get-the-ball-and-run – I'm not saying he's that kind of quarterback. But when he does run, teams have a hard time catching him. He runs a lot faster than you and me, Pete.
Zolak: I think Pete's worried about [Tom] Brady coming out in the red zone and this kid coming in and running the football in.
[Laughter]
Belichick: Well, I'll tell you what, when he runs, people are going to have trouble catching him. Well, he led the team in rushing, what, two of the last three years?
[Hosts: Yeah.]
Belichick: Whatever it was. So this guy can run, but he's not a…he doesn't just get the ball and take off. It's not one of those deals.
[Laughter and crosstalk about Sheppard]
Ordway: Bill, you just said it, you win 18 of 19 games this past year, you're sitting here in the offseason assessing what you've got. And I know you tell us this every year: each year is it's own year and it's a separate issue.
Belichick: Well, it is.
Ordway: And I agree with that. But you know what you've lost, you know what you've gained, how do you sit and assess and say to yourself, try to figure out what you need? Because you didn't get your goal last year even though you did win 18 of 19 games. You were almost perfect, didn't get the goal. How do you assess it and put it together and say this is what we need to get to our goal?
Belichick: Well, I think you just try to keep improving your football team. That's what you do. You look at a team like Buffalo that's picked up Marcus Stroud and now made a couple draft picks – they got a good corner, they got another offensive weapon, their offensive line is better. Miami's improved. The Jets have made a lot of moves in the offseason. I mean, everybody's improving their team. And you know how it is every week in this league – it doesn't matter what you did last week or last year, every team in this league's capable of winning every game. There's no byes, there's no play down to Division 1A, AA and all that. This is the National Football League and we see teams every week upset other teams and all that. So if you don't play well you're not going to win in this league, I don't care who you are or what you did last week. So that's the way we're approaching it and I think there are a lot of things we could do better. We can do a better job of coaching, we can do a better job of playing; and those are some of the things we've tried to address in the offseason.
DeOssie: How is the rest of the offseason going so far? Workouts, and I know you have a rookie camp coming up in about a week or so.
Belichick: Right. The rookies will be in this weekend – the kids we drafted and some of the free agents that we signed. The players that have come in, they're working hard, they've got a good attitude. I don't think anybody's got the blues. I think we've just got our mind in the right place. Everybody's working individually to get better at this time of year, and then we'll start putting the teamwork together around the middle of the month when we get into the veteran passing camps and that kind of thing. But right now is a good time for each individual player to work on his weaknesses, be they strength, quickness, change of direction, flexibility, rehabbing an injury or whatever it happens to be. So, there are times to make individual and personal gains there and then we'll start to really build into the team structure in two or three weeks. But it'll be good to get a look at the rookies this week. We know it's going to be a challenging schedule. I mean, four games on the West Coast, that in itself is tough. The division's tough. We're playing the AFC West and I think that that's…you know, San Diego, we know how tough they are. And we never seem to be able to beat Denver. Open with Kansas City and they've added a lot of young players and Herman [Edwards]'s always got them ready to play early in the season. So we've got a lot of challenges ahead of us.
Zolak: Coach, you look at it, you guys had a tough stretch, you went through the combine, you did all the scouting process, you had the draft – how much are you still self-scouting yourself looking at some of the areas of need and some of the stuff you had to fix from maybe the second half after the bye last year?
Belichick: Sure, Scott, we're still doing that. Part of that will be in these passing camps – we'll take a look at some new plays, or maybe changing a route or a protection or coverage adjustments, things like that, maybe things that we started doing in the second half of the year because of things we were seeing or just general progressions that you make. And maybe look at changing a couple of those things or adding a couple wrinkles or patterns or plays that complement things that we're already doing. Then we may throw them out or we may decide to go further with them depending on how they look. There's certainly a good part of that. Also, we've got some players on our team that are going to have to, maybe their roles will be modified a little bit. I don't know about changing dramatically, but there will be some things that will be a little bit different. I think that's just kind of the normal progression of trying to do more things that you do better and trying to do what you don't do as well less times – only when you have to do it.
Sheppard: Coach, about Ty Law – any more discussions with him? Is there still a possibility that he could be on this team in September?
Belichick: Well, I think all players I would put pretty much in that same category. If they're not with our team, then they're not with us. Could things change? Things could always change. You could throw a lot of players into that basket there. We have interest in guys and sometimes that interest fluctuates based on our situation. And obviously you need two people to make a deal there, and if that can work, if that's good for both sides, then it's got a chance of getting done. And if it doesn't, then that's the NFL!
[Crosstalk about Fred Smerlas]
Ordway: Alright, we've been monitoring, Coach, all of the shows and the prognosticators on the internet. You've had an A-, a B, two C+'s, a C, a C- and a D. That's a stretch! That's quite a stretch.
Belichick: Yeah, that is. We're all over the place there.
Ordway: Do you get a kick out of some of this stuff?
Belichick: At least we don't have an F.
[Laughter]
Ordway: No, you didn't.
[Crosstalk]
Ordway: Do you get a kick out of some of this stuff after the draft when you hear the Mel Kiper, Jr.'s and others sit there saying, 'What the hell are the Patriots doing drafting a quarterback in the third round, or a special teams-only player in the fifth round?'? Do you get a kick out of some of this stuff?
Belichick: Well, you know, everybody's got their own view, and that's kind of what makes pro football the great game that it is. Everybody, they follow it, they get involved in it and they have opinions on it and that generates a lot of interest and enthusiasm. I would just guess that probably 90% of the people that are giving out those grades have not seen more than one player that a team drafts play. And that might be on the high side. A lot of times they just haven't seen those guys. I mean, I know myself that we go through hours and hours and hours of film watching these players. Just because you see them in one game, that, you know, you need to see them over a sequence of games – their junior year to their senior year, playing against different types of players, so forth and so on. So I'm not really too worried about those grades; I'm a lot more worried about getting the players in here and getting them to learn our system and having them develop and be productive for us. And whatever you guys want to give us, you give us.
[Laughter and crosstalk amongst the hosts]
Ordway: So let me ask you one more thing about the draft. I know we've had this conversation before about trying to assess beyond a player's ability physically and mentally to pick up the system, and that is heart  and desire and how much he loves the game of football. I mean, there's no question in any sport, if you look at the great players of the game they all have one thing in common, and that is that they all love to play the game , whatever that game may be. How do you figure that out with a guy? And, have you had a situation where you've brought a guy in, you've done all the scouting, and three weeks into camp you're sitting there going, 'This guy loves playing the piano, or video games or all this other stuff, and maybe he just doesn't love football as much as he should'?
*Belichick: Well, I think football, as we all know, is a sport where you can't just improve during the game, because there's not enough games. It's not like baseball where you play every day. The chance to improve in football is on the practice field. And if you don't improve on the practice field then your growth as a player is going to be very minimal. There just aren't enough games, so a player's got to…to be a good football player and to develop as a player, he's got to work hard to prepare himself for practice, and practice well. And that's the way it is for everybody. I know that Steve and Scott would both tell you – and they've heard me say to players when they're walking around listening to…with their headphones and their Walkman and their iPod and all that – that I tell them, 'Why don't you try listening to your playbook? Why aren't you spending the same amount of time reading your playbook as you do listening to garbage that's on that iPod…
[Laughter]
Belichick: …and you'd be a lot better off. Your football career would be a lot better off and you'll be listening to music a lot longer if you would do that. And I've also, at times, threatened to take those away from them and give them one that had nothing but their assignments on it.
[Laughter]
Belichick: You know, that's really what it comes down to. If you want to improve as a football player, you've got to improve in your preparation, you've got to improve on the practice field, because there's just not enough games. I mean, you can improve in games, but there's just not enough games! Not like baseball, where you're playing every day.
Ordway: So, DeOssie, he told me that what he was listening to all the time was Vince Lombardi's great pregame speeches. That wasn't true?
[Laughter]
Belichick: Hey, you know what, Steve knew what to. Steve knew his assignments; that wasn't a problem. I'm talking about young guys that come in here and they walk in with their headphones on and they're zippity-do-dahing along and they have time for everything but the playbook, film and the weight room. But they have time to go to McDonald's, they have time to listen to music, they have time to run around and drive their car around and zip around to all the different spots. Well, you know what, they're not going to last very long, because nobody's that good – or, very few are – and everybody else is going to come in and out-compete those guys and out-work them, and they'll just be better than them. That's where the Wes Welkers and the Tom Bradys and the Adalius Thomases and the Tedy Bruschis and guys like that – the Rodney Harrisons that were picked in the fourth, sixth, free agents and all that – that's why those guys have passed up so many other players with a lot more ability. They just out-work them and out-compete them on a day-to-day basis.
DeOssie: I know you gave a short list there, Bill, but it sounds like that description can cover a lot of your players, both currently and former.
Belichick: Well, I hope so, because as you know, Steve and Scott, you guys both know that the guy who really isn't willing to do that really isn't going to last very long in this program. And it's more a question of whether I get him first or the veteran players get him first and just get fed up with it, because we all work too hard to have guys come in here and not be willing to pay that same kind of price and support the program. If they're on their own program, then pretty soon they just probably need to go to another one.
DeOssie: Yeah. Well, Bill, May 13th's coming up and the league is going to have a chance to talk with Matt Walsh. Does it seem like this whole episode is finally coming towards some closure for everyone involved?
Belichick: I can't wait.
[Laughter]
DeOssie: I can imagine. I can imagine.
Sheppard: Coach, real quick. I know that he's signed with the Dallas Cowboys, but did you and Scott Pioli and the Kraft [sic], did you ever have any thoughts at all about signing Pacman Jones? Did that ever come up? And, seriously…
Belichick: No. No. No.
Sheppard: Too much baggage?
Belichick: It never came up. We never talked to them. They never called us, we never called them. We were never involved in Pacman Jones.
Sheppard: Thank you.
[Laughter]
Belichick: OK?
[Crosstalk amongst the hosts]
Ordway: Alright, Bill. Great talking to you once again and we'll talk to you down the line.
Belichick: Alright, sounds good. Have a good one. And as always, good to talk to you. Scott, Steve, Pete, Glenn, we'll catch you later.
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