2014 BB PC Thread: Turn and look for the ball

[Ed Hillel]

BB on Gronk's announcement that he'll play on Sunday. Per Jeff Howe:
 
"I'm glad Rob is optimistic about his situation. We'll go through the week of practice, take a look at everything.. with all due respect for Rob"

 
I guess that answers the question whether Bill had approved Gronk's statement. Oof.

 

[Reverend]

From before:
 
https://twitter.com/BenVolin/status/506607298274676736
 
 
Ben VolinVerified account
‏@BenVolin
Yes. Either to get us off his back, or as a smokescreen RT @mdfenway: @BenVolin do you think Gronk had permission to disclose he was playing

 

[SeoulSoxFan]

Ben VolinVerified account
‏@BenVolin
Yes. Either to get us off his back, or as a smokescreen RT @mdfenway: @BenVolin do you think Gronk had permission to disclose he was playing

 
Great - now I am thinking it's not out of the question that Gronk is a game day scratch. 

 

[normstalls]

I figure this exchange should be in this thread.  Pretty good ribbing by Belichick.
 
http://www.csnne.com/new-england-patriots/fore-belichick-swings-away-currans-golf-shoes

 

[soxfan121]

"oh, so you were on the way to the golf course and you just HAD to come in here."

 

[MainerInExile]

BB went on for 10 minutes today about unbalanced lines and the single wing.  Talked about running the single wing in 8th grade, 110lb football.  The man is an encyclopedia.  Watch it.

 

[soxfan121]

CLASSIC: "Until we get notified of anything, we get notified of anything."

 

[soxfan121]

BB went on for 10 minutes today about unbalanced lines and the single wing.  Talked about running the single wing in 8th grade, 110lb football.  The man is an encyclopedia.  Watch it.

 
Thanks for posting this. It is an incredible answer to a football question. 
 
Geez, asking the man about football gets ten-minute answers. Whoddathunkit?

 

[neil]

Dying with laughter at the "Bill, is one of the hardest things for a receiver to run the pick play?" response.
 
Bill: erm....erm....I don't know about that *stares at reporter for 5 seconds*

 

[Reverend]

Dying with laughter at the "Bill, is one of the hardest things for a receiver to run the pick play?" response.
 
Bill: erm....erm....I don't know about that *stares at reporter for 5 seconds*

I love this exchange because, after the question was rephrased to ask what is difficult about it instead of "is it one of the most difficult the things???" he drops a great answer.

The difference between the questions is subtle, but, apparently, important.

 

[JohnnyK]

BB went on for 10 minutes today about unbalanced lines and the single wing.  Talked about running the single wing in 8th grade, 110lb football.  The man is an encyclopedia.  Watch it.

That was incredibly interesting. Starts at 16:15, in case anyone wants to skip to it.

 

[JMDurron]

I wish I had time to watch these more often, because the entire 26 minute clip was extremely enjoyable to watch/listen to.  His unwillingness to ever say anything negative about a team always makes me think of Welker's benching against the Jets in the playoffs, you really would think the Patriots were going up against the best team in the NFL this week.  Sometimes I think even his good answers are a way of trolling the media a bit.  Either he gives curt, nothing answers to bad questions, or he gives great, in-depth, but long enough answers to good questions that it's just not possible to get a good, quick quote out of them.  

 

[bankshot1]

BB went on for 10 minutes today about unbalanced lines and the single wing.  Talked about running the single wing in 8th grade, 110lb football.  The man is an encyclopedia.  Watch it.

That was a great clip. BB was wholly engaged and you could see he was having fun with the subject. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Norm Siebern]

BB went on for 10 minutes today about unbalanced lines and the single wing.  Talked about running the single wing in 8th grade, 110lb football.  The man is an encyclopedia.  Watch it.

This is just fascinating, thanks for the link.
 
When he gives answers like this, I can only think of the idiot national media who kill Belichick every chance they get for not responding to stupid quedstions. Ask him a good, actual football question, and this is what you get. Clue to the national media: You want a good answer, ask a good question. Don't expect Belichick to reward your lazy, agenda driven drivel.

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

I hope you guys caught this bit from BB about new technology in film review.  I enjoyed the last bit about the old "ice pick" method, but I found this to be the best mental image:
 

"You think about people like that, Paul [Brown] and Vince Lombardi and Sid Gillman and every picture that I think of them is next to a projector with the film running," Belichick said. "I still have a lot of films in my personal possession, I don't know if I could...I'd have nothing to watch them on. But that's been a huge, obviously, a huge change. Film technology and the whole teaching and being able to do cutups and I do something and I can share it with somebody else. Or somebody else does the work, they can share it with me. The communication and the flow of information is incredible. Nothing that I would've ever envisioned in 1975 when I was working with the Colts."

 
He has many leather-bound books... of football plays and tactics.  Something tells me he has a whole football-film dungeon or bat-cave or something.

 

[Super Nomario]

I hope you guys caught this bit from BB about new technology in film review.  I enjoyed the last bit about the old "ice pick" method, but I found this to be the best mental image:
 
He has many leather-bound books... of football plays and tactics.  Something tells me he has a whole football-film dungeon or bat-cave or something.

This is a wonderful article. I really like the stuff at the beginning where Belichick talks about teaching and learning methods. One of the points Halberstam makes in Education of a Coach is that while Belichick is famously his father's son (Steve Belichick literally wrote the book on scouting), he's also his mother's - she was a teacher. Greg Cosell likes to say that every coach in the NFL can draw plays on the blackboard that would blow your mind, but that doesn't have any value unless he can coach the players to do it. Belichick gets a ton of credit for his schemes, but not nearly enough for his ability to teach and connect with the players.
 

 
Some players need to see it, see it on film, see the way it's going to look. Some players can verbally process the information and the assignments. Some players just need to spacially see it. 'I'm here, you're there, he's there.' They actually need to see the relationship to the space. Sometimes it's the quarterback. Sometimes it's the quarterback saying, 'Look this is what I see, this is what you have to do.' 'Oh OK now that makes sense.' Sometimes you have to see it from the quarterback's vision, or the quarterback has to see it from the receiver's vision. 'I'm not really thinking about doing this because of this.' That kind of thing. I'd say we use all the teaching techniques and certainly as an individual coach, if you find that one technique works with one player and another technique works better with another player and you find that one technique works better with one player and another technique works better with another player, then you somehow divide your time separately or make sure you do it both ways with your presentation, whatever it happens to be. I'd say that's what good coaches, good teachers do is that they make sure the students, the players in this case, are able to gather and process the information, but we all have different ways and styles and rates of learning. Not everybody's the same. That's not a criticism of one way or the other. That's the reality of it as a teacher. You've gotta be able to do it differently.

 
This is a thought that the media-created version of Belichick would never express.

 

[Dogman]

Q: Tom Brady was looking frustrated out there at times. Do you think that's frustration with himself for not making the throws or with his receivers? 
BB: You'd have to ask Tom what he was thinking.
 

 
Dammit BB, how do you not control what Brady thinks?

 

[Ed Hillel]

We're on to Cincinnati!

 

[SeoulSoxFan]

We're on to Cincinnati.

 

[soxfan121]

We're on to Cincinnati.

 

[bakahump]

Belichick would deal with tragedy amazingly well.  Perhaps an under appreciated (at least by me) talent that he has that has made him so successful is his ability to forget about yesterday and focus on today. Seriously many people cant compartmentalize like that.

 

[Stitch01]

What does the reporter who asks "hey, do you think the non Tom Brady players on this team suck?" think he's accomplishing with that question?  Would they be happier if they got the typical coaches platitude "blah blah players are good blah blah just have to work harder meow chow blah blah"?

 

[kolbitr]

Belichick would deal with tragedy amazingly well.  Perhaps an under appreciated (at least by me) talent that he has that has made him so successful is his ability to forget about yesterday and focus on today. Seriously many people cant compartmentalize like that.

True. Remember that this is the man who coached against the Falcons in 2005 the day after his father died, and only told the team after the comeback win. After all the other things that had gone wrong that year (Bruschi's stroke, Rodney's knee injury, numerous other lesser departures and injuries), he kept it in and kept himself together.

(Of course, Borges used Steve Belichick's passing in an attack column that week or next...)

 

[soxhop411]

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

Once he retires, I hope he accepts a less-stressful position that still keeps him in the public eye using his obvious talents.  I'm thinking specifically of White House Press Secretary.

 

[MJM2344]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET0WcQ2D1sc[/youtube]
 
Bert Breer in the middle of it.  

 

[soxfan121]

What does the reporter who asks "hey, do you think the non Tom Brady players on this team suck?" think he's accomplishing with that question?  Would they be happier if they got the typical coaches platitude "blah blah players are good blah blah just have to work harder meow chow blah blah"?

 
Yes, they honestly would. That shit fills a notebook and for guys who get paid to churn out five pieces a day, having easy quotes from the coach would make their jobs infinitely easier. If they had to do no thinking, just showed up and listened to Pete Carroll spout happy platitudes for ten minutes, they could focus on other things. 
 
So, I get why they don't like BB's press conferences. That said, it's not his job to make their lives easier. And despite knowing that football questions get football questions, dingdongs like Breer show up and ask questions BB about Tom Brady's inner child. 

 

[Super Nomario]

 
Yes, they honestly would. That shit fills a notebook and for guys who get paid to churn out five pieces a day, having easy quotes from the coach would make their jobs infinitely easier. If they had to do no thinking, just showed up and listened to Pete Carroll spout happy platitudes for ten minutes, they could focus on other things. 
 
So, I get why they don't like BB's press conferences. That said, it's not his job to make their lives easier. And despite knowing that football questions get football questions, dingdongs like Breer show up and ask questions BB about Tom Brady's inner child. 

Not only that, the most of the media would rather the head coach lie right to their faces. If Andy Reid says, "Kevin Kolb is our quarterback," they can write that up even though the next day Reid admits he's full of shit and Vick is going to start the next game. Belichick would just say, "the players that are going to play will play."

 

[dynomite]

Immediate candidate for the pantheon of great BB exchanges. Just glorious.

Not only that, the most of the media would rather the head coach lie right to their faces. If Andy Reid says, "Kevin Kolb is our quarterback," they can write that up even though the next day Reid admits he's full of shit and Vick is going to start the next game. Belichick would just say, "the players that are going to play will play."

Exactly. The key here is to be able to write a headline that will draw clicks/listeners, and they will do anything and everything to make that happen.

See Brady's quote today: "we don't have a great crowd"!!!!!!!!!

Which came from a paragraph in which he said "Our stadium has been very loud at times and sometimes we have a great crowd, sometimes we don't have a great crowd... The better we play the louder it will be."

 

[kolbitr]

So, I get why they don't like BB's press conferences. That said, it's not his job to make their lives easier. And despite knowing that football questions get football questions, dingdongs like Breer show up and ask questions BB about Tom Brady's inner child. 

 
This made me laugh out loud. Thank you, for having humor and reason in a bitter week!

 

[crystalline]

I love BB press conferences.

Sometimes he's having fun with the press corps by stonewalling them and he looks a little amused. Here I thought I saw a little smirk at the beginning of the long first question but then he hardened up and looked really pissed off.

 

[soxfan121]

Immediate candidate for the pantheon of great BB exchanges. Just glorious.


Exactly. The key here is to be able to write a headline that will draw clicks/listeners, and they will do anything and everything to make that happen.

See Brady's quote today: "we don't have a great crowd"!!!!!!!!!

Which came from a paragraph in which he said "Our stadium has been very loud at times and sometimes we have a great crowd, sometimes we don't have a great crowd... The better we play the louder it will be."

 
Clean out your PM box, dynomite. Or send me one.

 

[SeoulSoxFan]

@BenVolin
“Bill, how much did your team need a win like this?”
 
“I don’t know.”

 
Yup. He's an asshole but he's our asshole. (Erm, wut?)

 

[SeoulSoxFan]

Apparently BB got into a "loud" argument with Chris Gasper of the Globe. Fun never ends with BB & the media.

 

[brandonchristensen]

Any quotes?

 

[Stitch01]

Gasper asked him about the criticism and he responded "from who" and then "with all due respect we don't listen to that stuff" or something like that with an expression that did not convey a lot of due respect.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

Apparently BB got into a "loud" argument with Chris Gasper of the Globe. Fun never ends with BB & the media.

No chance Gasper will be activated for the Buffalo game.

 

[Import78]

Gasper asked him about the criticism and he responded "from who" and then "with all due respect we don't listen to that stuff" or something like that with an expression that did not convey a lot of due respect.

 
Well, he gave it all the respect that it was due.  It just so happens that the Hooded One thinks it deserves no respect at all.

 

[soxfan121]

Gasper asked him about the criticism and he responded "from who" and then "with all due respect we don't listen to that stuff" or something like that with an expression that did not convey a lot of due respect.

 
You left out the best part. After he asked "from who" and Gasper replied "the media, people in this room", Belichick hocked a loogy <SNORT>, fixed the "dogshit" look on his face and delivered the "with all due respect..." finisher. 
 
It was fucking awesome.

 

[Mystic Merlin]

Would love to hear audio of the BB/Gasper fight

 

[MB's Hidden Ball]

You left out the best part. After he asked "from who" and Gasper replied "the media, people in this room", Belichick hocked a loogy <SNORT>, fixed the "dogshit" look on his face and delivered the "with all due respect..." finisher. 
 
It was fucking awesome.

The full question starts at about the 07:45 mark; the whole thing is worth watching, though

http://www.patriots.com/media-center/videos/Belichick-105-Tonight-was-our-night/a8c70a9a-08ac-46d2-bf02-19f759b611da

 

[soxfan121]

Would love to hear audio of the BB/Gasper fight

 
Per Curran on Sports Sunday and Mike Petraglia from WEEI...it was not a fight. Apparently, they talked in a reasonable manner and then shook hands. 
 
Another overblown, exaggerated or made-up story from the local media?! That never happens. 

 

[Stitch01]

Ohhh, now we need to actually be able to know what the hell is going on to report on it?  Guess the rules are changing this week.
 

 

Christopher GasperVerified account ‏@cgasper 7h7 hours ago

I am dismayed that people who have no idea what the conversation was about or what was said would tweet about it. But that's journalism now.
 

 

[Ralphwiggum]

 
You left out the best part. After he asked "from who" and Gasper replied "the media, people in this room", Belichick hocked a loogy <SNORT>, fixed the "dogshit" look on his face and delivered the "with all due respect..." finisher. 
 
It was fucking awesome.

 
Was just coming here to post about this.  Maybe the best BB press conference snippet ever.
 
I am beginning to agree with Toucher & Rich that the snorts and belches are intentional.  Either way they are awesome.

 

[Ed Hillel]

 
Ohhh, now we need to actually be able to know what the hell is going on to report on it?  Guess the rules are changing this week.
 

 

 
Holy irony, Batman!

 

[Reverend]

Per ESPN:
 

Quick hits from Patriots head coach Bill Belichick’s Wednesday morning news conference: 
. . .
Former Patriots and current Bills linebacker Brandon Spikes is now a team captain in his first season with Buffalo and an integral part of the team’s run defense. Spikes fills a similar role to the one he had with the Patriots. Belichick is familiar with his former linebacker. “We know him. Don’t think he’s changed much,” Belichick said. “Hair might be a little longer.” 
 

 

[Ed Hillel]

16:45 for an amazing, 4-minute answer on the evolution of Special Team and Special Teams coaching:
 
http://www.patriots.com/media-center/videos/Belichick-108-This-is-a-big-week-for-us/48610bc5-d68f-4245-8cc2-bd0d4d9229ba#/media-center/videos/Belichick_1010_Moving_on_toward_Buffalo/cb9ee0bf-7deb-4658-b99d-8813ea8499f7

 

[IdiotKicker]

How do I go to 16:45 in a 16:10 minute video?

 

[Ed Hillel]

How do I go to 16:45 in a 16:10 minute video?

 
Their website is being a bit wonky right now. It's loading the 10/8 PC instead of the 10/10 PC for the 10/10 PC link, so you have to click on the 10/10 interview on the bottom scroller of the video (immediately to the left of the "now playing" in the below link) to ge the correct video. He says it at 16:45 of the 10/10 PC.
 
http://www.patriots.com/media-center/videos/Belichick-108-This-is-a-big-week-for-us/48610bc5-d68f-4245-8cc2-bd0d4d9229ba#/media-center/videos/Belichick_1010_Moving_on_toward_Buffalo/cb9ee0bf-7deb-4658-b99d-8813ea8499f7

 

[IdiotKicker]

Great interview.  I feel like this gets said a lot, but it's amazing how good Bill's memory is and how much football history he actually know.  Just nuts.