Belichick smiled. Quick, save for posterity before he denies he ever did!
Not sure if I mentioned it here, but highlight of the Patriots parade in Boston was a smiling Belichick starting a chant of "NO. DAYS. OFF." with a crowd that had just taken the day off to watch the parade. It was so hilariously contradictory.
So, yeah, he smiles. Quite often even. Just not during post game or mid week press briefings when people want to ask him dumb questions.
Some of the beat writers have gotten really good at asking him questions he's enthousiastic about, usually historical questions or questions about technical stuff unrelated to what happened in a game. He'll happily take 5-10 min answering one of those and you get awesome insight when he does. It's just usually not that interesting for non-Patriots fans and makes for absolutely terrible headlines or sound bytes, so the more main stream media hate it.
I remember reading one of his long monologues about something (I think it was on getting rookies up to speed in the NFL). Really put into scope the difference between a great system and one of that like the Browns.
Pete Carroll is very vague to the non-Seahawk and even normal Seahawk fans, but tells a lot if you get his way of speaking and philosophies. Prime example: https://twitter.com/raincityseries/s...26692716167168 His monologue there could be pretty vague, but makes a lot of sense to me.
Seems pretty clear to me. And I agree, Belichick does much the same thing, trying to prepare the team mentally (and physically) for adversity of any kind.
Personally I think that's why Green Bay has struggled in high pressure situations. They don't seem to have that edge instilled from coaching. I don't think Mike McCarthy is a bad coach, but I've seen the Packers wilt under pressure one too many times to not think he doesn't prepare his team in this regard.
Hes specifically talking about grit in player evaluation.
I agree with that. I saw something way back before SB49 where teams that are good through a long period have a lot of coaches, assistants, and staff. Seahawks and Patriots are in the top there. Which really, why wouldn't you do that? Theres no caps on coaches or assistants aside from what the owner wants to pay. Pete Carroll even has somebody on the sideline getting paid to hold him back so he doesn't get flagged for going on the field while celebrating.
Well, the market is getting better, but then the demand is also going up. Not sure this changes much.
Also, with regards to the Rams and Wade Phillips, I saw this interesting tidbit, draynay, https://twitter.com/PFF_Sam/status/832284206533312512
Cool little visualization of how the changes with Wade Phillips where it concerns your most important defensive player won't matter much.
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I've been reading into some mock draft stuff, and I'm already wondering why on earth I did.
Seems a lot of mock draft people are having the New England Patriots draft Jabrill Peppers at 32. Now as a Patriots/Michigan fan this should probably delight me, but it's definitely not.
1) He's too small to be a linebacker and he's not a fit in the deep part of the field as a safety. Peppers is a box safety. Run support, cover tight ends, near the line of scrimmage zone coverage. That's what he does best. We already have Chung and a 2nd round pick from '15, Jordan Richards for that role, so drafting Peppers makes no sense in that regard.
2) I think Peppers is more athlete than football player. He was the heart and soul of last year's Michigan team, and he apparently is smart enough to know the schemes inside out, on all 3 phases he played in Michigan, so from a character/intangibles perspective you have to love him. Trouble is that from watching him last year, he seems to do a lot of things, but doesn't seem to do any of them as well as players that dedicate themselves to just one thing. He was an electric returner, but often times I felt he was mostly just abusing his raw athleticism to out run and out juke lesser athletic talent. On offense, I personally felt he was atrocious. On defense I didn't see him make plays to alter the game that often, compared to some of his team mates. All in all, I just wasn't sold on him much for his on field production.
So in the end, I don't see the fit and I don't really want him to be drafted by the Patriots, cause I think there's other positions where there's good players available that are more important.
Peppers will get drafted and some team will likely figure out how to effectively use him, but I think mocking him to New England is just lazy writers figuring "He's popular so he needs to be in this first round and he's versatile so we don;t know where to put him, so we'll just mock him to the Patriots cause they like versatile players" while in reality I don't think the fit is there and we are far more likely to draft a linebacker, DE or TE.
Going to 4-3 from 3-4 is I'm guessing easier than going from 4-3 to 3-4.
Plus, most of the time athletes are just freaks at whatever they do. I'm pretty sure Aaron Donald is one of those people too.
As far as mocks, most of the ones I see (I don't focus on the draft anymore) is taking a tackle... thats not gonna happen lol. Its gonna be the best CB available.
Wow, Darelle Revis is in deep shit (and rightfully so). https://twitter.com/MikeGarafolo/sta...72737519779840
Wow, thats serious...
Although really, what possesses people to go up to random people and start recording shit and following them?
It gets stranger. Revis is saying that something else entirely happened. Apparently he needed medical attention and says he was confronted by 5 people. http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...confrontation/
Vince Young was talking about coming back and playing, but it looks like he might settle for the CFL https://twitter.com/leighsteinberg/s...10553712300032
Michael Floyd is going to jail.
"Floyd will serve 24 days at Maricopa County Jail and then be on house arrest for 96 days."
Source: https://twitter.com/MarkDanielsPJ/st...70531329486848
Personally hope that's the last we see of him in a Patriots uniform. He seemed very nonchalant about what happened, in the interviews I saw he basically said he didn;t understand why people were still making a fuss about it and that everyone should just move on after it happened. he also seemed to kind of expect that the Patriots would just keep him for next season, like it was a done deal. In short, fuck that guy. At least until he shows some genuine remorse and understanding of what he did.