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Host Glenn Ordway with Curt Schilling and Rob Bradford in the studio.
Ordway: You may have seen this on YouTube, you may have seen it on TV, you might have even heard this on the radio the other day, but apparently there's a new musical sensation that's hitting the music world, so I'm going to play it. (Plays music.) [Jon] Bon Jovi with [Bill] Belichick and [Charlie] Weis, and all I can say, Bill, is I would keep the day job if I were you. I would just keep that day job. I think you're doing just fine with the day job; I'd stay with it. But apparently a lot of money was raised for a charity. How did that work out?
Bill Belichick: It was a lot of fun. Charlie had the event for his daughter's foundation, Hannah & Friends. Jon was playing up there and played his usual stuff – Livin' On A Prayer
and all that. And then he was kind of saying to the crowd, 'Boy, I bet we could raise a lot of money tonight if we could get Belichick and Weis up here singing.' So that kind of got everybody going. Then he followed that up with, 'You know, as a matter of fact, I'll give 50 grand to Hannah & Friends if we can get these two guys up here.' So, what am I going to do?
[Laughter]
Belichick: It was for a good cause.
Ordway: You could make an ass of yourself for 50 grand, right?
Belichick: There you go. For a good cause.
Ordway: Well, it's good to talk to you again. Say hi to Curt Schilling and Rob Bradford.
Belichick: Yeah! Hey Rob, Curt. I'm down here in Florida; I'm actually doing some college scouting. I swung by Disney today and said hello to Jim Leyland and Bobby Cox. They're playing tonight. It just seems strange, Curt, to be down here at spring training and you be back up there in Boston at this time of year.
Schilling: It is weird. It definitely is weird, yeah.
[Crosstalk]
Ordway: Alright, let me ask you this…
Belichick: I remember it was like Curt asked me, what, two years ago maybe when I was…I remember sitting down there in Tito's office and you walked in and we were talking and just… Man.
Schilling: Time flies.
[Laughter]
Ordway: He's lowered himself to this. What has happened to you, Curt? How could this happen to your life?
Belichick: Wait till you get to be my age.
[Laughter]
Ordway: Do you find yourself now, because you didn't have football in January, have you found yourself doing a lot more of this out on the road, doing some of this scouting stuff that maybe Scott [Pioli] would have done in past years?
Belichick: No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I'd say it's pretty much normal in terms of the process. The one thing I did this year which I haven't done the last couple years, fortunately, was go to the Senior Bowl, because that takes place right there at the end of the season with the championship games and the Super Bowl. But the Combine and all the free agency preparation and the draft preparation and all, kind of on the normal schedule there. I guess the thing that's a little bit different this year has been internally with some new people on the coaching staff, some new people in scouting. We've spent more time, probably, meeting and going over things and just all trying to get on the same page and making sure that everybody kind of sees things the same way and we're all heading in the right direction. We've probably spent a little more time doing that than we have the last couple years. Otherwise, I'd say it's about the same.
Ordway: You made an awful lot of moves and I want to get to some of these moves right now, because there's been a lot of speculation, a lot of rumors, a lot written…
Belichick: Speculation?! About what?
[Laughter]
Ordway: Well, let's start with the Matt Cassel deal. A lot of people have been shocked, surprised that you only ended up getting a second round draft pick for Matt Cassel. Why do you think that happened that you got a second round for him, and was that what you expected you were going to get when you first franchised him?
Belichick: There are a number of things that go into the whole situation. It's kind of a process. It is a process. But first of all, we put the franchise tag on Matt because we felt that he had value to our football team and we wanted to protect that value. If that was with us, fine, and if it wasn't – which it ended up not being – then that was an option, too. But we certainly were prepared to have Matt on our team this year and would have welcomed Matt on the team. That's why we made that move. By rule, you can't trade a player who's not under contract, and when we tendered Matt – it was early in February – that didn't give us the right to do anything. Now, in discussions with Matt and his representatives, he ended up signing a contract that we received right at the end of the Indianapolis Combine. It was like the Sunday of the Combine when it was actually hand-delivered by his representative to Floyd [Reese]. So, once we had a signed contract in place then we could technically talk about trading the player. But until then, you can't.
Not to digress, but like with the Julius Peppers situation, I've read things out there about, 'Well, there's trade talks going on.' There's no trade talks going on with Carolina; they don't have a signed contract. They can't talk about trading a player who's not signed. So that wasn't really an option. Then in that time period between that Sunday or Monday of the Combine and the start of free agency which was Thursday, we talked to some teams about Matt's availability. Teams had contacted us, but again, because he wasn't signed, we really couldn't talk about that. So once he was signed, we followed back up on some of that interest. And then by the end of the week, ultimately we ended up getting the deal done with Kansas City. But I think a big component of that was the fact that Matt was under contract. And again, you look at the Julius Peppers situation, who we all know – Peppers is a great player, still a young player and has a good future in this league – isn't under contract, can't be traded by Carolina, and is taking up a lot of cap space on their roster, which has forced them to do a lot of other things to manage that situation from a team standpoint. So it's a little bit of a complicated thing. But I think that's basically the week there of the Combine and Matt signing the contract and then ultimately trading him to Kansas City where, in the end, when you trade a player that only has one year on his contract, and we weren't in position where we could offer Matt a long-term contact, that just wasn't something that we could do. We ended up trading him with only one year left on his contract, the one with the franchise number that he signed for. So right now he's in Kansas City on a one-year deal. And we all know historically that when you trade a player that only has one year on a contract, that's a lot different than trading a player who has multi-years that a team can commit to. In another situation, maybe we might have been able to get a little more for a player. In other words, the same player with three years left on his contract probably is worth more in the market than a player with one. So I think that probably was a function a little bit too of the overall value of the Cassel trade.
Ordway: Why did you do it that Saturday? I've heard people argue the point that had you waited, the next couple of days, since we have already heard stories out of Denver that they came in, and might have come in, late, I'll ask you that question. Was Denver ever a player in the deal for Matt Cassel?
Belichick: Well, after we already… First of all, I think teams like Denver certainly knew what the situation was. I think ever team in the league, they have good personnel people and they're on top of the personnel situation. We franchised Matt, everybody knew what the situation with a player in that situation. And as I said, there were a number of people that we contacted – not contacted, but talked to – after Matt signed his tender, because that was a little bit of a change of circumstance once that happened. We pretty much had the deal done with Kansas City because there really wasn't any interest. Some of the teams who said they, you know, as part of a three-way trade and that kind of thing, those teams…I don't want to get into the specifics but believe me, those teams, I personally had contact with 24-48 hours before the confirmation of Matt's trade to Kansas City and they said they had no interest in the player. And now we have a situation where all of a sudden, right at the last minute, 'Well, we would have done this, we would have done that.' There was no offer. I think there's speculation as to what a team might or might not have been willing to trade…
Ordway: I heard first and third was written.
Belichick: But I think that comes back to, again, the contract. What I didn't want to do in the whole situation was to have a trade that kind of dragged on because we're negotiating a long-term deal and then we can't get it done, and you end up with a situation where it just would drag on, and it didn't work well. And, at the same time, we saw opportunities to improve our football team. When we made the trade for Matt, that brought us a draft choice and it also gave us the opportunity to sign some players that we think will give us good depth and good quality on our team. But it's all tied in together. It's not any one thing. But I'd say a lot of the talk that I've heard out there about what would or wouldn't have been done was a) after the fact, b) would have been conditional on a lot of other things working out, and there's no guarantee that all of that would have actually come together. You know, let's start listing the three-way trades that we've seen in the National Football League. How all that's going to happen and…you're trying to negotiate a long-term contract like it probably would have taken to trade Cassel somewhere else, to think that's going to get done in 15 or 20 minutes, I just don't think that's realistic. But the bottom line was it was never really there, presented. It was like, 'Yeah, maybe this could happen,' but it was never presented like, 'Yeah, here's a firm offer. Here's a deal. Do you want to do it?' It never even happened that way.
Ordway: It had been reported there was a first and third from Denver on the table. You're saying that never happened.
Belichick: They never made that offer to me.
Ordway: You brought up the Julius Peppers deal and you talked about the difference in that Matt Cassel had already signed that tender, though it might have been a timing situation for you, he signed it. Peppers has not signed the franchise tender with Carolina, so therefore you cannot negotiate any type of deal with Carolina.
Belichick: Well, hold it. That's not true. The only thing you could do is you could go to Peppers – it could be any player, but in this case, Peppers – you could go to Peppers, you could do a contract with him, if he signed that contract then you could present it to Carolina and they could either match it or they could not match it and then they would receive their compensation based on the franchise tender that they gave him – two number one picks. But, for him to be traded by Carolina, he would have to go in and either sign that tender or sign another contract with the Panthers. Then once there's a signed contract, then Carolina could go to any team and say, 'Do you want to trade for this player?' And then that team would then assume his new contract.
Ordway: Right. So, I guess the follow up question is have you had conversations with his agent? Because you can talk to his agent, correct?
Belichick: Yeah, we could talk to his agent, but again, if we were to work out a deal with a player like that, a franchise player – whether it's him or any of the other players who are franchised that haven't signed their tenders – then the compensation would be two number one draft picks. That is the compensation.
Ordway: But Carolina could change that, right? That's been changed in the past, where they could lower that. So let's say…
Belichick: No, they can't do that.
Ordway: They can't?
Belichick: Not until they have a signed contract. Once they have a signed contract, they can trade the player for whatever they want.
Ordway: Alright, let me ask it this way then. If Julius Peppers does not want to stay with Carolina and they finally come to an agreement that he's not going to stay in Carolina, and he works it out. And they need the money, let's say. They need the money under the cap because right now they're tying up $16.68 million, I believe, on the cap. Can he have his agent work out a deal elsewhere and Carolina, because they want to unload the $16.68 million and they know he doesn't want to play for them, can they facilitate a deal at a lesser price than two first round draft picks with a team like, let's say, the New England Patriots?
Belichick: I think it would be…it's probably possible for that to happen, for a team to…essentially what you're saying is to work out a trade through the agent.
Ordway: Correct.
Belichick: They can't talk to the team, the team can't talk to the player, but the team could talk to the agent and then kind of work the trade out through the agent. I mean, I guess that would be possible. I don't think that's a good way to do business, and I personally would not do it that way. I think if a player wants to be traded or wants to be in a position where he could be traded, then the best thing for that player to do is to do what Matt Cassel did, which is to sign the tender, be under contract, and then go to the team and say, 'Okay, I don't want to be here. You could trade me. Here's where I want to go.' Or the team could say, 'Look, here's what we would accept for you.' I mean, that was essentially the Deion Branch situation. Deion Branch had one year left on his contract. He ultimately wanted to be traded. We gave different teams permission to talk to him and ultimately traded him to Seattle. So, that's how a trade like that would work, is if you find out finally if you get to a point where you just can't work things out with a player, then the team might give the player permission to talk to other teams or you might talk to other teams directly about moving that player in a trade. That's how it works. But you can't trade a player that's not under contract. That's a simple rule. And I'm sure Carolina hasn't tried to do that. And they shouldn't. And if Matt Cassel hadn't signed his tender, I wouldn't have done that either.
Ordway: And they may have the same difficulty that you were talking about earlier with Matt Cassel in that you had already signed him to that franchise tender, which was $14.6 [million] or whatever, and that another team may require, 'Hey, we don't want to take $14.6 for one year, we want to scratch out a three-year deal.' He would have to renegotiate a deal. Would he do that with Carolina to facilitate that trade, or would that team have to have that cap room to actually take him in and then redo it?
Belichick: Well, one or the other. But in Kansas City's case, they had the cap room to take Cassel's, whatever it was, $14-plus franchise contract onto their cap. They had the space to do that. But again, I would just say from a trade standpoint that if you're trading for a player with one year left to go on his contract, that you're going to give up less for that player than if you were going to trade for a player with multiple years where you know what your fixed costs are and you know that you have the player locked in for x-number of years, whatever's left on the contract. Again, if a player were to go in and sign a one-year deal, then yes, the team would be able to trade him. Would they be able to maximize their trade value on that one-year contract? I would say in general no, and then how do you get more out of that? Well then maybe you figure out another way to kind of make everybody happy – the player, the new team and the trading team. Again, I think the big part of this is there's a lot of moving parts in a situation like this. There's a lot of things that have to be worked out. And, in all honesty, when you're talking about that level of player, that level of contract, those different levels of commitment, it's usually not the kind of thing that happens in 10 or 15 minutes. Those things can take a long time and they can tie up a lot of time, money and resources, and they may not ever get done. Again, I go back to the Deion Branch situation. That took months to resolve. So, getting a contract done, getting a trade done, getting all that, to think that that's going to happen in five minutes in a situation like that that came up that weekend, which is what I think some people have kind of put out there, I don't think that's really accurate. It just doesn't happen like that in this league.
Ordway: With the Matt Cassel deal, if you had waited, could you have got a lot less? Could you have been in a situation, based on what you saw in the landscape out there, could you have been a situation – and you already said that you would not have a problem keeping both of those guys [sic]. On the other hand, you would have had no cap room to go out and sign, certainly, [Shawn] Springs and [Leigh] Bodden, I wouldn't think, and [Joey] Galloway?
Belichick: Yeah, there's no way. There's no way. I mean, in trading Matt…and again, I love Matt Cassel, I love what he did for our football team, and I think he's a real good football player and I would love to have Matt Cassel on our team. At the same time, you have to do what's best for your football team. And what I felt was best for our football team, what we felt as an organization was best for our football team, was to make a trade with Matt with Kansas City. As much as I like Matt, as much as I like Deion Branch, as much as I like Mike Vrabel, as much as I like other players on our team, sometimes you just have to do what you feel like's in the best interest of your team, whether that's releasing players or trading players or whatever it happens to be. Unfortunately sometimes that's part of the business, but that's what I feel like is my obligation to the franchise and the rest of the football team, is to do what's best.
Ordway: Let me ask you about the Vrabel thing, because that kind of caught me off guard, caught a lot of people off guard. What was your thinking there based on the money that he was making at the time? You talk a lot about value; we've heard you on the show many times bring up the value of a player. What was the thinking behind including Vrabel in that deal?
Belichick: Well, again, just that. Those decisions are based on doing what's best for the football team. When you trade a player to another team, obviously the other team wants that player or they wouldn't have traded for him. So, you do what's best for your team, and Kansas City did what they thought was best for their team. So ultimately we reached a point of agreement.
Ordway: The other one that gets me, that I think is pretty comical, is that people have accused you of trying to set up your buddy Scott Pioli. You just talked about you were doing everything for the benefit of the New England Patriots, and I've heard you say that many times before, that everything you do is to make this a better team. How did you react when you started picking up the stories and reading some of the national publications that were claiming that you were trying to set up your buddy, Scott Pioli, to get him off to a good start in Kansas City.
Schilling: I'll reach across and punch him for you right now.
[Laughter]
Belichick: Yeah, it's pretty ludicrous. I mean, look, I have all the respect in the world for Scott and everything that he's done. He's a great friend, and he's a terrific executive and personnel manager, but I work for the Patriots. I have no loyalty to anybody or any team other than the New England Patriots in football. Everything I do is for our team to win and be successful, so that's what my commitment is. I can't image anybody thinks that's any different, but I can just tell you what I do.
Schilling: Alright, cool. Coach, I'm going to ask you some fun football stuff and not this frickin' media intrusive stuff.
[Laughter and crosstalk]
Belichick: You could have broken in a little sooner.
Schilling: Being a Steelers fan…and I won't ask you these Steelers questions today. But I'm more curious…we had a chance, a couple springs in a row, for some of the guys on the team to get down and talk to you and Scott when you guys came down, and I've always been fascinated by both of your approaches to personnel. It's such an incredibly integral part of building a championship club. I'm curious to know, from a football fan's perspective this year, going into this season, what team in your opinion, if they address a need or two in the draft, has the best chance of being kind of the Arizona Cardinals of 2009, going from maybe a top of the draft team to a potential bottom of the draft playoff contending team?
Belichick: That's such a hard question…
Ordway: Go back to mine if you want. You want to do that?
[Laughter]
Belichick: Well, I can't relate it to any other sport. I'll just say that in football, there's so much integration between what everybody does. And I that think there's kind of a perception of, 'Oh, well we need a guard, we'll find a guard. That problem's taken care of.' And, 'Oh, we need an outside linebacker. We'll draft an outside linebacker. That problem's taken care of.' But how it all fits together…and we've all seen players go from one team to another and sometimes do a lot better with the new team and sometimes they're a lot worse with the new team. You look at a team like Carolina, last year signed two big free agents and released them the next year. And then we've seen other guys come in – the Randy Moss' of the world or whatever – and catch 25 touchdown passes the next year, or whatever it was. You just never know how those things are going to work out. There are so many components that have to mesh together. I know last spring nobody was sitting around talking about Miami being the team to beat in the AFC East, yet it turned out that they were, coming off a 1-15 season. So, you just don't know how one or two guys are going to effect a team. I think that with the competitiveness of the National Football League, and certainly in the AFC, it doesn't take too much for one team to take over another. And as we saw all year, it doesn't take too much from game to game – just one or two plays here or there – that can effect the outcome of the game which then effects the outcome of the season.
Schilling: And health. Health is such a huge part of that.
Belichick: Yeah, that's a big part of it too. But it's such a fine line, as we all know, between winning and losing. And not games, but divisions, titles, championships – two years ago we were 35 seconds away, last year Arizona's 35 seconds away from winning a championship. It's a fine line. I haven't really taken a lot of time to study what everybody else is doing, to be honest with you. I really just try to focus on how do we get better, how can we have a better football team, how can we do a better job of coaching and preparing our players, whether that's free agency, draft or preparation for the spring camps and training camp and the season. Those are really the things I'm focused on.
Schilling: That actually goes down to my second question. As someone's who's intimately involved with personnel and obviously recognizes someone exceptionally talented at evaluating personnel, the first part of the question is how much work do you guys do on other team's potential drafting? You can have a laundry list of players you want to pick at your slot, but you know for a matter of fact there are x-number of players that are definitely going to be gone, and then there's kind of a gray area of players that might or might not be gone. How much work do you guys do kind of mock drafting with scouting reports based on input from other clubs and what they're going to do? And that kind of leads to the one I really what to know, is when you go to the Combine, someone that is as in tune and in touch with the off the field impact that players have that they do, the physical part of the Combine or the one-on-one interviews, what is more important to you to get a great read on a player? And in that question, is it easier for a player to jump way up on your draft board or fall way down based on a surprising physical test at the Combine or on a more surprising one-on-one interview kind of thing?
Belichick: Those are really some great questions, and I don't know that there's a precise answer to them. But just going back to the first one, as far as personnel and other teams, I think that what we try to do is about a week before the draft – it's a little early to do now, but the week before the draft we go through all the other teams in the league and we look at what their needs are and how they've been filled, whether they've signed free agents, and go through other sources, whether it's just information that we have or maybe it's media information or maybe it's – however we get it – to kind of have an idea of what that team's looking for, or if there's a specific player that they like, then we have that kind of information on each team. Sometimes that's more accurate than others, but we have that and we'll use that in the draft. In other words, if we're picking – and the five teams ahead of us are teams A, B, C, D and E – as we're getting ready to pick, we kind of have an idea of what are their needs, what players do we think would fit them, or have they shown interest in for this kind of a need, and sometimes that would affect our decision to move up or move down in the draft based on kind of what we think's going to happen, either right ahead of us or right behind us.
As far as the Indianapolis Combine goes, I'd say the most interesting thing for me is to talk with the kids and just kind of get to know them. These kids all come from different backgrounds and have had different experiences – life experiences, college experiences, football experiences. Sometimes there's something about their background that you specifically want to ask about and kind of get their side of the story, or get an explanation of what happened or what didn't happen, and that can be a little bit enlightening. But in 15 minutes, I don't think you can make a character evaluation on somebody – I'm not smart enough to do that and I won't try to do that. I just find it interesting. And I think the physical testing part of it is just one component of it. To me, it would be like if you're putting together a puzzle, a 500 piece puzzle, and you found two pieces. Well, you're a little bit closer to having it put together, but it's not like those two pieces are 80% of the puzzle. They're maybe 1% or 2% of the puzzle, whatever it is. It's just one factor that…hey, if you're trying to draft a receiver and this guy's a really good player in college, and then you find out at the Combine that if you take this player as a receiver, he would be the slowest receiver on your team. Maybe you didn't realize that when you were scouting him, but now that you've actually put a watch to him and seen him run, the fact of the matter is that this now would be the slowest receiver on your team. You know, maybe once you put him out there with your guys he wouldn't be quite as good as what you thought he would be just watching him play, and vice versa. So, I think that there might be one or two guys that there could be a little bit of a bigger shift on than maybe what you anticipate. But the game's played on the field. Guys have 10, 20, 30, 40 college games of history. To watch them in a drill and have that outweigh what a guy's done over two, three, four years of college football, I would never do that.
Schilling: Right. Alright, I have one last one. This is a hypothetical. This year, your team, no cap, you've got the #1 pick. Who do you take? No cap.
Belichick: You know what, I think if you could trade out of that one that that would be something to think about. But with the way it's set up now, most teams can't trade out of that. To be honest, at 23, a lot of the players that are going to go in the top five, honestly I've spent very little time looking at, because I know there's no chance that they would even be anywhere in range for us, so it doesn't matter who I like in that group. I really haven't looked at them very carefully; I've looked more at the guys that I think would be likely middle to later first round guys.
Schilling: That was exactly the answer I was expecting.
[Laughter]
Belichick: So, I'm going to have to pass on that one.
Schilling: Yep.
[Laughter]
Belichick: But it was a lot different last year when we were picking seventh – then you really needed to know all those players at the top of the draft. Again, moreso than guys in the later part of the round, because once you take your pick at seven or 10 or whatever it is, you're going to lose another group of guys before you pick again. So, I really haven't focused on that part of it. So that's how I get out of that hypothetical question.
[Laughter]
Ordway: You just alluded to the fact that teams have trouble moving down out of that spot. We've heard that over the last couple years, and maybe you can characterize what this year's draft is like and whether we're having similar conditions here. But I keep on hearing stories around the league of teams right now that want to move down. Is there a real fear? Are you finding more and more in that league, that teams are scared to death of drafting in that top 10? Though logic would tell you you've got a better chance of getting a better player if you're drafting in the top 10 versus drafting in the bottom 10 of the first round.
Belichick: Oh, yeah. No, there's no doubt about that. I think it's the cost. And it's really the top five, Glenn. When you pick in the top five – like Jake Long last year, for example. When the Dolphins selected Jake Long, he is the highest paid tackle in the league. You're saying that guy is the highest paid tackle in the league and he hasn't played one snap. So, you know, that's not really good value…but you have to do that. That's what you have to do to sign the pick, so there really isn't much option on that one. I think that's kind of the JaMarcus Russells, the Jake Longs, guys like that. Not that they're not good players, it's just nobody's really that good; nobody is worth that kind of value who's never played a game.
I think some of the moving down this year in the draft is probably a little bit of a reflection, I think, of the sense that this is a deep draft. There are some good players that are going to be available later in the first round, early in the second round, and I haven't seen enough to say that with conviction, but I've heard kind of that same thing of you could probably get the same value player at 40 that you could get at 20, or that kind of range. Now, whether that's exactly true or not, I don't know. The thing about being at 20 is you get your pick of those players. The thing about picking at 40 is you might get the same value, you just don't get to select which one. Again, the higher you pick the more options you have; there's also a higher cost to it. And those first five picks are very, very expensive.
Bradford: Bill, I'm going to go back to the media line of questioning. I just wanted to get your take on in terms of what you think Joey Galloway can bring to this offense.
Belichick: Joey's been a terrific football player in this league. First of all, he's trained probably as well as any player, and I think that speaks to the longevity of his career. He's got tremendous speed, explosion; been very productive as a perimeter receiver, as an inside receiver. In Coach Gruden's offense, where he's played the last few years, he's moved around a lot. I've gotten the opportunity to see him run a lot of different routes. He has a lot of versatility as well as a lot of skill – he's got punt return ability, is good with the ball in his hands after the catch. I just think there's a lot of different things that he can do in our offense. Looking at him and [Greg] Lewis, those two additions, plus [Wes] Welker, [Randy] Moss, Sam Aiken, the guys that we already have, I think that we have some good talent and also versatility in that group, so hopefully we'll be productive throwing the ball. But I think Joey gives us a good level of talent but also is a versatile receiver that'll do a lot of different things for us.
Ordway: Alright, let's look at the defensive side of the ball. Shawn Springs, you bring in. Leigh Bodden. Bodden, you saw him, obviously, two years ago in Cleveland in a system that was probably similar to what yours was. Is that more of what he is, as opposed to what we saw in Detroit last year?
Belichick: Well, in Detroit last year they played him on the perimeter, usually on the defensive left. He started off the season on the right, but he mainly played on the perimeter. At Cleveland they used him in the perimeter but they also used him inside in the slot, and that's something that Detroit didn't do. So, Leigh's shown the ability to do both in his career. He's played in our system in Cleveland, and I think that the people at the Browns have a lot of respect for him and like him. I don't think that they necessarily wanted to trade him, but that was part of what they had to do in the Shaun Rogers deal, so that's why he ended up in Detroit. Again, I think he's a player that's shown some versatility. He's got good size, is a tough kid, is a good tackler. It just gives us another guy in the secondary to help us defend the passing game. That wasn't one of our stronger areas last year, so with him and Shawn and re-signing James Sanders, I feel like we've got a chance to be a little better back there than we were a year ago.
Ordway: Bill, do you project Springs as playing both corner and safety?
Belichick: Well, Shawn's another versatile player that's done all of those. He's played outside, he's played in the slot and he's played at safety. And again, what exactly will be the right mix for our defensive backs. And maybe that will change by gameplan or by personnel grouping. It's kind of similar to our receiver situation with Lewis, Galloway, Moss and Welker, how that will all work together. That's part of what we want to do this spring and in training camp, is to…we've got some thoughts on it but we want to see what it looks like on the field, take a look at some guys doing some different things and different combinations and see how it will work best for us. So, I don't have the exact answer to that for you right now. And again, that may change a little bit depending on who we play and what scheme we're playing. But I think in the end, their versatility will help us and we'll try to do what we feel is best for the football team, however we package it all together.
Ordway: How about that outside linebacker spot with Vrabel gone? Do you see somebody that you've got on the roster right now – one of those younger players – taking that spot, or is there a possibility you will go elsewhere? We talked about Peppers earlier in the interview. Will you go elsewhere to fill that role?
Belichick: You know, we ended up playing quite a few people at outside linebacker last year after Adalius [Thomas] got hurt in the Buffalo game, and then Pierre [Woods] got hurt in the Pittsburgh game. So we've seen those younger players play, like Woods, and of course Shawn Crable didn't get to play much during the season, he was injured in training camp, and re-signed Tully [Banta-Cain], Vince Redd, [Angelo] Craig. So, I think we've got good competition there but I'd never turn down a good defensive football player anywhere, whether it was a draft choice or a pro free agent or trade or whatever it happened to be. If there was a player that could upgrade our football team at any position, outside linebacker or anything else, I would certainly consider it. I don't think you can have too many of those guys. I like the ones we have, and if there's more competition there, great. And if there isn't, then I think the guys that we have have shown that they can play in this league and play well for us. And I think that they'll do that this year, and they'll improve.
Ordway: Let me ask you about a guy I know you absolutely love and you talked an awful lot of on the weeks leading up to Dolphin games. Do you have any interest in Jason Taylor? He's out there.
Belichick: Yeah. There are a lot of players that aren't with teams right now, and part of what we do is to look at all of them and evaluate them and evaluate our situation and what we can do, both financially and competitively, and try to see how all of that works together. I wouldn't want to comment on any player that's not on our team as far as that goes, but we have a lot of respect for Jason, and a lot of other players that are out there too. All that's still possibilities and they're opportunities; we just have to see, ultimately, how it all could or would work together. But the only guys that we have now are the ones that we have under contract. And as you know, that can change in a hurry. Sometimes you could come together with a free agent in a short period of time, or sometimes that process takes months and months. So I wouldn't want to ever try to predict that one way or the other.
Ordway: Let me just ask a generic question about a specific player's game, in Julius Peppers, who right now is playing in the defensive line on a 4-3. He wants to apparently play outside linebacker in a 3-4. Looking at this size, looking at his quickness, looking at his ability, how do you see him making that transformation from a D-lineman to that outside linebacker? That generic enough?
[Laughter]
Belichick: Again, there are a lot of good football players out there. Certainly Julius Peppers is one of the better players in the league. He brings a lot of skill and he's had a lot of production. What exactly he'd do and how he would do it would probably be different in every system that he would play in, but I think that he would play in whatever system he was in, if that makes any sense.
Bradford: Good answer. Good answer.
Ordway: That makes a lot of sense. So what are you doing the next few weeks building up to the draft? Obviously you guys have got an awful lot of work to do. Are you going out, looking at players? What are you doing here?
Belichick: Yeah. I'm actually out on the road right now, and there will be some more of that. At the same time, our offseason program started Monday, so our players are back in town working out and starting to…we've already started preparing for the season, but in more of a team and a group work started to prepare for it. And we'll continue to evaluate the free agent opportunities out there, so that's all part of it. The schedule will be out in a couple weeks and we'll start to see who our early opponents are and start working on them. So, I'd say it's a combination of a lot of things, a lot of balls in the air. The draft is certainly a bigger focus now than it was maybe a month ago, prior to free agency. But now that the free agency period has kind of died down a little bit, we're kind of catching our breath on that. Then the spring workouts with the players and the draft preparations, that will all pick up. But then it will all ultimately come together with the spring camps in May, so we're getting ready for those, getting ready for the draft, getting our players in on the offseason program, and just trying to bring it all [together] and build our team for the 2009 season, both acquiring personnel and developing the personnel that we have and trying to address the coaching and schemes that we use to maximize everybody's effectiveness…and scout our new opponents, even the teams in our division like the Jets who have made a lot of changes, to try to get as much of a head start on them as we can. So, it's kind of all those things – there's different aspects of them going on all the time.
Ordway: I really appreciate you coming on today. There have been a lot of, as I said, rumors and innuendo and speculation out there, and hopefully we've answered some of the questions. … I'm glad you've been able to address some of this stuff with us today.
Belichick: Well, always good to talk to you, Glenn. Curt, Rob, good to catch up with you. We'll talk again soon, I'm sure.
Ordway: We'll talk before the draft, how's that? Sound good?
Belichick: Sounds good.
Ordway: We'll get Freddy [Smerlas], we'll get Steve [DeOssie], we'll get Pete [Sheppard] in here.
Belichick: That sounds great.
Ordway: Alright Bill. We'll talk to you.
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