Here’s 1,343 words from Bill Belichick on the draft process
Bill Belichick had a couple things he wanted to get off his chest before answering questions about the upcoming NFL draft.
1,343 things, to be exact.
The Patriots head coach spoke with reporters Friday, and while he did not have much to say about how much time remains on Tom Brady’s career clock, he was uncharacteristically verbose on the team’s approach to the draft. Belichick described the work director of player personnel Nick Caserio and his scouting staff put in to whittle down the list of prospects, and mentioned that the local talent pool among New England colleges was exceptionally strong this year.
Later in the press conference, Belichick said that his staff will sometimes conduct mock drafts to spark a conversation and prepare for the real thing on April 26. He also told reporters that he doesn’t understand “the whole need thing,” preferring to acquire good players irrespective of position or gaps on the roster.
Without further ado, here’s Belichick’s opening remarks on the draft process:
“Just will say a couple quick comments before we get to the draft. Since the last time we were together in Orlando – well, some of us – there have been a few changes to the roster on and off. That’s pretty common; I mean, it’s going on throughout the league. I’m sure there will be more of it over the course of the next four months, and we’ll continue to do whatever we can to try to help and improve the football team in whatever way that is. You know, it’s an exciting time of year, really. You know, we had free agency. I’d say there’s a little bit of a lull in that, although it hasn’t ended. Obviously, there’s a lot of excitement with the draft coming up. Our players will be returning for the offseason program on Monday and we’ll start to meet with them and then head into on-field work in May – end of April, early May – and then into OTAs. So, it’s an exciting teambuilding time with the evaluation of new players, eventually new players coming onto the team, and watching our players come back. We have a number of guys, like we always do. There’s always a lot of growth from year one to year two, but in the past we’ve had a number of players who have had a much bigger impact on the team in year two than they did in year one. This year, we have quite a few players who for one reason or another, various circumstances, didn’t have a lot of production last year. That may change this year. I don’t know, but it will be interesting and it’s exciting to see how they’re doing, as well. So, just kind of the whole process is coming together at this point in time. We’ve communicated with all of our current players, the new players, the players who were on the team from last year. We have the voluntary offseason program that starts on Monday. It will be heavily attended, but I know there are a couple players that I’ve talked to that have other commitments, but that’s the way it always is, too. So, not really anything new there. And so that kind of brings us into the draft process here. This is the culmination of a tremendous amount of work by our scouting staff and to a lesser degree in the last couple months, our coaching staff and other people like that like myself. But Nick [Caserio], Monti [Ossenfort] and their respective staffs in the scouting area have done a tremendous job of accumulating a lot of information, putting a lot of things together to expedite the process for those of us like me that are coming into the draft a little bit later in the calendar after the regular season or after the conclusion of the postseason in this case. Starting with a couple thousand people and whittling that down to let’s call it 500 and then getting our draft board down to a fraction of that size, but still the remaining players in the later rounds and free agents are a key part of the process, as well. As we know, we’ve had a lot of – every year we’ve had players undrafted that have made our roster. Some of them have been significant contributors – late-round picks, sixth, seventh-round picks, free agents – so that part of the process is critical to our success, in some ways just as important as the early rounds are. So, it’s a big volume of players. A lot of work has gone into that. Again, Monti, Nick, their staff have done a great job. All that being said, it’s surprising how every day you come in and kind of a new name pops up somehow – maybe not a new name but a significant change in a player’s situation. You kind of think you’re a week or two weeks before the draft and where did this guy come from? And then you go through the background and you dig through it and you sort of see why it’s just surfacing now and why it didn’t surface two months ago. But it’s a constantly evolving situation. In the end, we give each player a value based on what we think he can do for us. And then we ultimately do the best we can to improve the football team with the opportunities that we have. This year is a little bit different than the last couple years. Going into those past two drafts, I would say we were able to eliminate a number of players just based on where we were selecting. This year is a little bit different than that, but we really need to know the draft from top to bottom and potentially – I’d say there’s a handful of players that are probably out of reach – but realistically, just about everybody’s in play, other than a handful of guys. So, that’s a little bit different than what it’s been. It doesn’t change our process any; it just changes, I would say, the level of work that we do on some players that could be a factor that in other years, similar players, we scouted them but we really had no opportunity to draft them. But in the end, you can’t manufacture players. You can’t manufacture a guy. It’s a name on the board right now and until that player gets on the field and performs, then we never really know for sure what that’s going to be. So, really the time to evaluate the draft is a couple years afterwards, but we don’t have that viewpoint right now, so we’ll put it together and figure it out the best that we can, do what’s best for the team, whatever that is. The schedule – so the preseason schedule was released and I noticed on that schedule that there are no games in May or June or July. Preseason games are in August, so it doesn’t look like the regular season is going to start until September this year. So, that’s four months of team building. There will be other player acquisitions and deletions, I’m sure, after the draft, as there always are with our team and every other team in the league. This is one piece of the puzzle, it’s one part of the process, but there are no games scheduled in May. So, we’ll continue to evaluate our team, all aspects of it – new players, new veteran players, new rookie players, existing players, players that will eventually come on the team from some other source at some point, as they always do or have in the past every year. So, we’ll just go through that process and take it as it comes. But, it’s an exciting time to be involved in the team building. We’ll certainly add a number of names, players to our team in the next two weekends, so in the neighborhood of 20 players – whatever it ends up being – and that will be a big chunk of players. We’ll see how it goes. Again, I’m sure there will be other parts of the team building as we go through the year. So, happy to take any questions relevant to the draft and do the best I can to help you with those. Also, I’d say this year has been probably a year where we’ve – there are always players in New England, but I’d say more players closer to home this year. Steve [Addazio], B.C. has done a great job of building that program, acquiring talent over there. They have a number of players. UConn, UMass, Holy Cross, Maine – a lot of New England schools have guys that are going to be I would say factors in the draft at one time or another, so it’s good to see that. It’s made some local scouting – it’s made that a little bit easier – not easy, but traveling is easier. So, not totally different, but it’s a good group in this area this year.”
