| |
[Updated March 30, 2009: Added audio of Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti talking about his conversation with Bill Belichick. See below.]
Hosts Tim Ryan and Pat Kirwan at the NFL Owners' Meetings in California. Coach Belichick called in and spoke with them on the phone.
Ryan: Bill Belichick joining us right now on the show. How are you doing, Coach?
Belichick: Doing great. How about yourself?
Ryan: We're doing fine. We're missing you out here at the hotel and resort.
Belichick: Well, just trying to put together a football team back here in New England.
Kirwan: That's a little more important.
Ryan: That'a boy.
Belichick: Well, I don't know about that. We've all got our things to do.
Kirwan: Yes. And we just saw that you got the compensatory pick at 96. And for the listeners, the Patriots who've done a fine job in the offseason will now be picking at 23, 34, 47, 58, 89 and 96. Nice job, Coach Belichick.
Belichick: Well, that should give us six of the top hundred if we don't trade or move from any of those spots, which wouldn't surprise me if we did. But we're going into it with six players in the top hundred. That should give us a chance to improve the depth and quality of our football team, so hopefully we can take advantage of those opportunities somehow.
Ryan: Coach, all the Patriot fans want to know, and clearly I don't think – and I think Pat's on board with this – that you would have ever gotten rid of Matty Cassel if Tommy Brady did not look like he was going to be ready to return for the 2009 season. But all that Patriot fans want to know is, is Tom Brady, in his rehabilitation with that knee injury, going to be ready to go – in your mind, as you see it at this point – for the '09 season?
Belichick: Well, Tom's working hard, as he always does. We'll take it as a process as it goes along. Right now he's doing the things that we do in March, and as we move into the program in the offseason and the spring camps and so forth, we'll see how all that progresses. But Tom's working hard and I know that he intends to be ready.
Kirwan: Bill, let's talk about those two corners that you signed, Shawn Springs and Leigh Bodden. It was interesting, the Shawn Springs signing, particularly, to Tim and myself. Terrell [Owens] goes to Buffalo, and no sooner than that happens I see Shawn Springs, who we've got plenty of tape here that says Shawn Springs can cover him. I thought it was two terrific moves for you to bolster your secondary.
Belichick: Thanks, Pat. We certainly wanted to try to improve and give our team competition and depth wherever we could. We've liked Shawn for a long time; he's had a terrific career. He's a bigger player that has a lot of position flexibility. He's played outside, he's played inside, the nickel spot, he's also played some safety, and we thought that the flexibility that he gives us defensively would be valuable. And the same thing with Leigh. Leigh's been a perimeter corner who we [indistinct] last year at Detroit, but prior to that he had also played in the slot – he did that when we played against Cleveland and we've seen him in there plenty of times. So, again, I think that the quality of those players, and also their versatility, gives us not only depth on our defense but also good competition among the secondary. And as you know, Pat, you can never have too many defensive backs. It seems like every team's always got a handful of receivers, and you can never have enough guys to cover them.
Ryan: Where is Terrence Wheatley in terms of his development? Your second round pick from last year.
Belichick: I think Terrence is coming along well. He was really picking up speed there in about the middle part of the season when he was injured against Indianapolis. He was really fighting for playing time and he was starting to become part of our nickel packages and things like that. I think he would have challenged for playing time as the season went on, but unfortunately that was his last action. He's working hard, he's here in the offseason program and he's doing all the things that we would expect him to do at this time of year. I'm sure that he learned a lot from last year's experiences and will try to build on those in the '09 year.
Ryan: Coach, I would never expect you to even comment on Jason Taylor or Julius Peppers and the possibility of those guys joining your football team, but with the departure of Mike Vrabel and having a need as an outside linebacker in terms of a pass rusher, if you guys had to run out of the tunnel tomorrow – and I know there's a lot of evaluation, I'm sure, in your mind, but Tully [Banta-Cain] being back, Pierre Woods, Shawn Crable – who would rush opposite Adalius Thomas?
Belichick: Well, that will all be decided at training camp and then the opportunities the players have competing on the field. It doesn't really matter to me who the players are, we put them out there and let them compete and they decide based on the competition who earns the playing time, who earns the spots and who gets those opportunities. I think we have good competition at that position and those guys that you mentioned are all working hard. I think that we have a good blend of youth and experience and a couple of different types of players – speed and power and size on the edge. So, we'll just have to see how all that plays out. I don't know, it's hard to predict how big of a jump players like Vince Redd and Shawn Crable will have from year one to year two as we saw Pierre Woods and Tully Banta-Cain and players like that have in their careers at that same point. So, I can't answer that question. I just think we have good competition there and we'll see how it plays out.
Kirwan: Only because Matt Cassel did such a great job for you last year – and it took a couple years to develop – when Tom went down and Matt played and he did a fine job. But I don't know that our listeners, and maybe even many of your fans, know where Kevin O'Connell is right now, because he becomes Matt Cassel for you.
Belichick: Well, Kevin played in a very pass-oriented offense and had a lot of playing experience during his college career at San Diego State, which was quite different from Matt Cassel's experience at USC playing behind [Matt] Leinart and [Carson] Palmer. So, Kevin's gotten a chance to throw a lot of balls and he's thrown a lot of passes from the shotgun and spread formations and things like that that they did at San Diego State. Last year, he got more work under center and more work in a pro-style offense – in our offense – than probably what he had in college in some of those things, and he did a good job. He came along well. Even though he didn't take many playing snaps last year, the fact that he got all the snaps as the #2 quarterback when Cassel moved up to the #1 spot, I think benefited him in terms of his preparation and development last year, even though it's hard to measure that without any snaps on the field. Just the, as you know, the work of getting ready each week, the gameplan, the adjustments, studying the opponents and all those things, just becomes much more urgent, and the reps that you do get in practice as the #2 quarterback becomes valuable in that development. So, I think that's all helped him, and he's picked up from that and built on that experience from last season, and I think he's going to have a good spring. We'll just see where that takes him this year when he has his opportunities in the spring camps and in training camp and the preseason games.
Kirwan: Terrific, Bill. Let me ask you this question. You talked about the blend of youth and veterans, and your team is getting younger, what's the challenge for Bill Belichick with 12 draft picks? I could see you using some to move around the draft, but it might be very difficult if you were to take 12 players to get them to even make the team. So how do you balance? It's nice to have all the picks but maybe it's time to do something with them, or maybe you're considering that as we get closer to April.
Belichick: Well, I think that's a good possibility, Pat. As you know, in the past a number of times we turned this year's picks into next year's picks. We did that with San Francisco two years ago which led to the [Jerod] Mayo pick, and we did that with the [Drew] Bledsoe pick when the Ravens took [Kyle] Boller and moved that ahead. So, we've done that in the past and I think if those opportunities are there…we did it last year with San Diego and our third round pick, and that now is this year's second in the middle of the round. So, if those opportunities are there with the number of picks that we have, I'm sure we would consider them. But you never know how that's going to go on draft day and we have to be prepared to pick when our turn comes up in the event that that's the way it goes. I think that we'll be looking for young players that will give us some quality competition and improve our football team. I think also when you have multiple picks like that it gives you the flexibility to package a couple of them together to move up for a particular player that you might feel has fallen into a range that you can bid for him on. I think it just gives you a lot of flexibility going into the draft, but I think your point's well taken about expecting all of those players realistically to be able to make the team; I think that would be asking a lot. If we could package those together, or move them into next year, I think that would certainly be something we would consider. But only if we had good value for those spots.
Ryan: Coach, just a couple more minutes, and we really appreciate your time. We had Steve Bisciotti on the program yesterday [see below], the owner of the Baltimore Ravens. He told us and all of our listeners – and said that he had never said it to anybody before, certainly not on air – that the hiring of John Harbaugh, and he obviously said he really sensed that leadership and those skills that John had brought in during the interview process he said, but one thing that maybe helped put it over the top was the endorsement that he got from Bill Belichick on John Harbaugh. Will you talk about that a little bit?
Belichick: Well, I think Steve's real generous in saying that but I've known John for a long time. I know from my experience as an assistant coach that I really felt like the best training I had to be a head coach was when I was a special teams coach. I was involved with the special teams for eight years early in my career at Baltimore and Detroit, Denver, and then with the Giants. And I just felt like those years as a special teams coach gave me the ability to interact and coach every player on the team other than the quarterback – that in some phase of the game that you would be working with all the players. There's a different mentality between offensive linemen and defensive backs, and receivers and linebackers – they bring different skill sets and so forth. I thought that was very valuable for me. I think that's one of the things I mentioned to Steve, because John had such an extensive special teams background sometimes there's a little reluctance about hiring somebody like that as a head coach thinking it would be better to have a guy that's been longer as an offensive or defensive coordinator, but I don't think that's necessarily true, particularly in John's case. John's just an outstanding football coach, period. He knows people, he knows talent, he works hard, he's got a good feel for the game, both from a scheme standpoint, a technique standpoint, and motivating players and getting them ready to play. We've competed against him many times and it's always been a challenge to go up against John's units, whether that was in the '07 season when he coached the secondary in Philadelphia or the years like going back to the Super Bowl when he was the special teams coach with the Eagles. So, I have tremendous respect for John and Steve, Ozzie [Newsome], the entire Baltimore organization. There's still a lot of people there that I knew from Cleveland, and they've done a terrific job. And they did a great job last year of turning that team around and going all the way to the AFC Championship.
Ryan: Hey Bill, thank you so much for about 15 minutes. We'll talk to you soon.
Belichick: Alright, sounds good. Thank you.
Kirwan: Take care. Thanks Bill.
Transcribed by the webmaster.
Listen to an audio clip online or download the mp3 |
|
