Bill Belichick’s Q&A session with reporters included some of the following topics:
The defensive back prospects in the draft and how safeties are evaluated differently now. “There are some interesting guys here. There are some corners, there are some safeties, and then there are some guys that kind of fall in between. We’ll have to determine how they’ll fall in a particular system. I think that the safety position has become more and more of a corner position in the National Football League. There were times when some of the safeties, particularly the strong safeties, fit more almost like linebackers than they did as defensive backs. I think that’s changed gradually, but now to the point where your [safeties] a lot of times have to cover wide receivers or they have to cover tight ends who are very, very good in the passing game. It’s not guys running 5-yard hook routes, and stuff like that. The tight ends in the league, and it seems like just about every team in the league has one, can get down the field and make athletic and acrobatic catches … I think the demand for that position has changed and I think that’s changed the evaluation a little bit. So maybe some of those hybrid guys who played corner and played safety – like [Malcolm] Jenkins, for example, is a guy who played both, what his best fit would be for a team, where he’s most valuable, is certainly an interesting discussion for all teams.”
More on Floyd Reese and his addition to New England as a senior football adviser. Belichick reflected on his past with Reese, saying that “as much as anybody, [he] kind of mentored me when I got to Detroit [in the 1970s]. Our staff was an older staff and Floyd and I were the two youngest coaches on the staff. We ended up living a couple blocks away from each other, and we kind of hung out together, rode to work, rode to the games, worked together in the kicking game. We communicated a lot, we had a friendship as well as a coaching relationship, and I’ve always admired and respected Floyd for what he’s able to do.”
Other questions Belichick was asked before his interview ended included:
His thoughts on first-year Jets coach Rex Ryan
Why he thinks long-tenured coaches like Mike Martz, Jim Haslett and others are currently out of the league
His memories of his time in Cleveland with the Browns
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and thus.... Sean Smith of Utah jumps over Alphonso Smith and D.J. Moore on the "DB's the Pats will look at list".
Louis Delmas.
I'm sure Bill loved the Cleveland "memories" question.
Patrick Chung
Hey Drew Be ware of any one named Chung. We already had one of the Chungs here allready. He couldnt block my 85 year old mother. He was bad but granted he hung around for a few more years with a couple of bad teams. He almost got Favre mamed by the Bears a few years ago when he was with the Packers.He missed a block On Urlacker and Favre was smashed. I think he got cut after that one.
Rashad Johnson from Alabama, is someone to keep an eye out for as well...Nick Saban connection
Hey, biilw, you sure you're not thinking of our other offensive line bust, Adrien Klemm?
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