Bill Belichick compared David Harris’s arrival to that of another Patriots linebacker
"You know, he’s a smart guy, he has a lot of experience and he knows our division, a lot of our opponents pretty well."
On the first day of Patriots camp Thursday, head coach Bill Belichick answered a question about the cool weather with his trademark brevity.
“Whatever it is, it is,” said Belichick.
Belichick is also prone to longer answers when he gets a question he likes, as was the case later Thursday when a reporter asked him about recently-signed linebacker David Harris. The Patriots coach compared the 33-year-old veteran to another free agent signing, Rob Ninkovich, who was signed in 2009. Here’s the full quote:
Yeah, it’s a little bit of a challenge, although we’ve had this before. Different, but if you remember, I think it was ’09 when we signed [Rob] Ninkovich and guys like that coming right in before training camp. One thing about David, though, he has a lot of experience. He’s, as you said, played a lot of football and been in a lot of different systems. We gave him a lot of information when we signed him that he’s studied over the last three, four weeks. We were able to catch up on some of that in the last couple days and so, I mean, we’ll see. We’ll see how quickly it comes to him or how quickly he’s able to be comfortable with what we’re doing. I think we’ll be alright there, but there’s definitely some work. But he’s put in a lot of work. Coach [Brian] Flores has, as well, and we’re just trying to get him as up to speed as we can at this point. But, you know, in a way, we’re starting all over again in training camp. Even though we did a lot in the spring, and that was important and it certainly built a foundation and he missed that, but we had other players that weren’t able to practice in the spring. We’ve been through that before. Even though they’ve been in our system, in this case, we’ll just have to play a little bit of a catchup with him. But, I think we have enough time to get reps on the field, get communication with his teammates, understand the various schemes and adjustments that we make, and we’ll just have to put in some extra work to try to do it. You know, he’s a smart guy, he has a lot of experience and he knows our division, a lot of our opponents pretty well. Not that we’re at that point yet, but when we do get to that point, he’s pretty familiar. You know, we play the same schedule pretty much every year, with the exception of two games that the other division teams play, so I think there’s a lot of things that will come up that will be relevant – not the same, but at least he’ll be able to relate to them.
