Bill Belichick discussed scheming for the Bills and Julian Edelman’s injury
The Patriots take on the Bills for a chance to clinch the AFC East on Saturday.
The 11-3 Patriots take on the 10-4 Bills on Saturday, a matchup that to many on the team feels like a playoff game.“For sure it’s a big game for us,” said cornerback Stephon Gilmore. “They’ve got a good football team. It’s for the division. So it’s a playoff game…I’m looking forward to the challenge.”While their win against the Bengals already earned them their 11th straight playoff appearance,the Patriots need to defeat either the Bills and/or the Dolphins (or for the Bills to lose one of their remaining games) in order to snag the AFC East divisional title.When asked Thursday if he felt the sense of “urgency of a playoff game,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick expressed the same sentiments as his cornerback.
“Absolutely. Absolutely. This is what we’re here for.”
– Bill Belichick on if Bills matchup feels like a playoff game pic.twitter.com/QvztzRlEvc— NESN (@NESN) December 19, 2019
“Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely,” Belichick said before practice. “That’s what we’re here for…You work all year to put yourself in a position to play in a game like this where you can win the division. So, you couldn’t say that in Week 4, or Week 6, or Week 8 – whatever it was. Well, we’re saying that now, so now is the time for us to play and coach our best football. That’s what we’re all here for.”
Belichick went on to admit that the Bills have been a “tough team to prepare for” and highlighted aspects of their defense, their use of tight ends, and what he’ll be looking out for ahead of the game. He also addressed how the Patriots are handling the status of wide receiver Julian Edelman, who is listed as questionable due to knee and shoulder injuries.
Here’s what he had to say, according to the team’s official transcript:
How the Bills’ defense has remained “the same” since they last played and what he’s noticed from Sean McDermott’s system:
“I think it’s rare, I mean, they virtually have had no injuries. I mean, it’s the exact same – it’s really the same players. [Ed] Oliver’s obviously gained a lot of experience and he’s a good player, but it’s really pretty much the same group. They’ve been very healthy, have missed very little time. Their rotations are pretty solid and consistent because they’ve had all those guys available. So, Sean [McDermott]’s scheme is Sean’s scheme. He has a broad scheme, he has a lot of variations and change-ups, but they complement each other. It’s not a big – I mean, the volume is not exorbitant, but it’s enough to keep the offense off-balance, so that you can do enough different things to change up. Play man, play zone, play blitz-zone, bring two, bring three, or bring one, bring two, drop one. So, you just don’t know exactly what you’re going to get schematically and they do a very good job of disguising what they do, so that they look the same, but they’re not the same, and they combine that with some defensive line movement and obviously some very good players.
“They’re well-coached, they have good players, they’re sound, they don’t give up big plays. It’s hard to string a lot of good plays together against that defense. You might move the ball a little bit, but if you have to put together a 10, 12-play drive, usually they can make plays along the way before you can finish the drive and they’re out of there.”
On safeties Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer, and how they work with their linebackers:
“I think I’ve said this for several years: they complement each other very well. They do a very good job with their disguise and pre-snap looks. They make it hard on the quarterback. Mostly as a coach or a quarterback, if you look at the safeties, that’ll pretty much tell you 80 percent of what’s going on defensively, based on their depth, or their rotation – your formation obviously, and then where they go in that formation, and then how deep they are and what kind of angle they’re taking. So, I would say those guys do a good job of holding that until the last second. Sometimes they give false keys, and start one way and go another way, so that as a quarterback, or as a coach, even if you’re looking at the game and you see something, and you think that’s what it is and your eyes go somewhere else, but then it starts one way and then it goes somewhere else, and then you’ve misread it. So, they do a good job of those things, whether they’re blitzing, playing man coverage, playing different zone coverages and different responsibilities in the zones. They’re both instinctive players.
“They do all of those things well, and they do it well with the linebackers. I mean, they tie the disguises in with the linebackers as well, too. Sometimes if the safeties disguise and the linebackers aren’t tied in with it, you’ve got all these guys over here together – somebody’s going to have to go somewhere else, so it’s, “OK, they’re trying to disguise it, we can see they’re trying to disguise it”. But, these guys, they move one way, the linebackers move the other way. They kind of control their disguises. I mean, they do a good job. And they’re fast. [Matt] Milano’s fast, [Tremaine] Edmunds is fast. So, even though they’re linebackers, they have the speed and, I would say, range to get to things that some of the linebackers can’t get to. So, it all ties in together well.”
What he’s noticed with the Bills’ tight ends:
“Well, earlier in the year they didn’t have [Tyler] Kroft, so it was [Lee] Smith then [Dawson] Knox, a little bit of [Tommy] Sweeney. Then kind of as Knox started to, I would say, come on a little bit, there were several weeks there where Smith didn’t play much. They all played, but the playing time went from Smith to Knox… So, I think with Buffalo you’ve just got to be ready for all the different personnel groups. They have them all – which ones they’re going to use against you and at what level of frequency – we’ll just have to see. Some of that’s probably game plan-related, other part of it might be game-related. So, we’ll just have to see, but they’ve all played. When Kroft came back, he played more in the first two-or-three games, whatever it was, when he got back. And then kind of Knox seems like he’s taken back some of that playing time, and as you said, Smith played more last week.
“So, you have to ask Brian how he’s going to use them. And Sweeney’s kind of dropped out, where he played more earlier – some earlier – he’s kind of dropped out, but he’s still on the roster. So, we’ll see.”
His thoughts on Julian Edelman’s injury:
“We follow the injury report rules as we’re required to do, and that’s what we do. So, whatever that is, it is. Now, there’s a lot of variation in what that can be based on what the rules are, but for each individual player, as you said, nobody’s 100 percent. Everybody’s played a lot of football, practiced a lot of football, and it’s been basically week-after-week other than the one bye week. So, that’s a cumulative thing and we do the best we can each week to manage all the things that you just talked about. Each individual player’s situation, what the team needs, what type of practice schedule, or what type of preparation we’re on, and how to get the most out of the team and the players, and to be ready to go on Sunday.
“So, it’s really an individual, daily answer to that question. What’s the player’s situation; what are we working on; what’s his role; what do we need him for; can he do it? I mean, if he can’t do it, then that answers that. If he can do some things but not others, then how important is it for him to do those things? Can we get him the next day, can we not get him the next day, so forth. So, we just take that on a day-by-day basis, and that’s really what the position coaches – one of the main things that they do is manage the players at their position.
“So, between Jakobi [Meyers] and N’Keal [Harry] and Julian and [Mohamed] Sanu, Phil [Dorsett] – and Joe [Judge] manages those guys based on all the things I just talked about. Or, Ivan [Fears] does it with the running backs, or Nick [Caley] does it with the tight ends, or Dante [Scarnecchia] does it with the line, and sometimes they add up, and sometimes they’re kind of independently – you know, you have to do what’s best for your group. “
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