Bill Belichick ‘actually working more’ in offseason than previous years, per report

"I’ve heard for more than a decade that those around him believe he wants to show he can win with the Patriots without Brady."

Bill Belichick at Georgia's Pro Day in 2022. AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

April 19, 2022

The 126th Boston Marathon saw 24,918 participants cross the Boylston Street finish line on Monday.

Evans Chebet won the men’s race, while Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir won the women’s race after a dramatic back-and-forth duel with Ababel Yeshaneh. Daniel Romanchuk and Manuela Schär won the wheelchair divisions by wide margins.

The Red Sox lost to the Twins, 8-3. Boston will face the Blue Jays in Toronto this evening at 7:10 p.m.

Also, the Bruins play the Blues tonight in St. Louis at 8 p.m.

Tomorrow at TD Garden, the Celtics take on the Nets in Game 2 of the first-round playoff series at 7 p.m.

Bill Belichick working hard ahead of 2022: Though he recently turned 70, Bill Belichick is apparently still living the “no days off” mentality as much as he ever has.

According to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer in his recent Monday Morning Quarterback column, Belichick remains the hands-on leader the Patriots have gotten used to over multiple decades.

“Belichick still loves doing it,” Breer wrote of the Patriots’ coach and his enthusiasm. “That much is obvious. I had someone there tell me that this offseason he’s actually working more than he has in the recent past, which only speaks to the fact that, to borrow paraphrase an old [Marv] Levy-ism, there really isn’t any place he’d rather be.”

With eight Super Bowl rings in his career (two with the Giants as a defensive assistant and six with the Patriots as head coach), Belichick’s place in history has long since been assured.

But as Breer pointed out, New England’s coach is still finding ways to motivate himself.

“I’ve heard for more than a decade that those around him believe he wants to show he can win with the Patriots without [Tom] Brady,” Breer explained. “He got the franchise Mac Jones and a playoff berth last year. The next step is showing that legit championship contention is on the horizon. If Belichick can get there, too, he’ll be in better position to hand something good off to whoever the next guy in Foxborough is—which I believe is another thing he wants to do.”

The next step in Belichick’s offseason planning comes soon with the start of the NFL Draft on April 28.

Trivia: Of the players selected in the 6th round of the 2000 NFL Draft, one of them (Tom Brady) has been selected to 15 Pro Bowls in his historic career. Another quarterback who was also selected in that round made multiple Pro Bowls in his career (which concluded in 2009). Can you name that quarterback?

(Answer at the bottom).

Hint: All of his career starts came with one team in a city that is no longer home to an NFL franchise.

More from Boston.com:

Marcus Smart learned he was Defensive Player of the Year from Gary Payton: Payton, a Hall of Fame defensive great, was the last guard to win the award (in 1996) before Smart.

Val Rogosheske ran Boston 50 years after helping to make history: Rogosheske was one of eight runners in the first official women’s division in 1972. In 2022, she returned to do it again, this time wearing bib No. 1972.

On this day: In 1897, John J. McDermott won the first-ever Boston Marathon. Spanning 24.5 miles — the regulation distance of 26.2 wasn’t officially set until 1921 — the course stretched from Ashland to Boston (Hopkinton wasn’t designated as the starting point until 1924).

The field of 15 was cheered along the route by crowds enjoying the newly established Patriots’ Day holiday. McDermott finished with a time of 2:55:10.