Bill Belichick talked about what it means to coach with his sons

"They’ve just lived their whole life with this program."

Steve Belichick (left) and his brother Brian Belichick, before Super Bowl LII at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. Jim Davis/The Boston Globe

By Gary Dzen

August 21, 2020

4 minutes to read

Bill Belichick doesn’t often get sentimental (unless he’s giving a six-minute monologue on his love of football history), but the Patriots head coach was reflective Friday when talking about his sons.

Steve Belichick, 33, is an outside linebackers coach for the Patriots (he used to coach the safeties), while younger brother Brian recently moved from a coaching assistant to safeties coach. Steve’s first official job with the team, as a scouting assistant, came in 2012. Brian was hired for the same role in 2016.

While the younger Belichicks still have a long way to climb in the organization, Bill says his sons have gotten a perspective on the team that few others have.

“Both Stephen and Brian have grown up a lot and they’ve come a long way,” Bill said Friday, in response to a question about what it’s been like to have his sons around the team in unofficial roles while they were young, and to have them on staff now. “Especially when I’ve had a chance to see them their whole lives.

“But they’ve been around a lot of football, they’ve seen a lot of football. They’ve seen things done from a different perspective than other people. But in the end, I don’t know anybody that knows our football program better than Stephen, who’s been in it a little bit longer, but Brian as well. They’ve just lived their whole life with this program. So all the things that we do, for all the different reasons and how it all ties together and so forth, they have a very good understanding of all the things that are involved and how it all is interwoven. And that’s valuable to me because they have a perspective of that.”

Brian Belichick, throwing a pass to his dad during Patriots training camp in 2006.

Bill Belichick was also quick to praise the coaches on his staff who do not share his bloodlines.

“We have a lot of good coaches on our staff, I’m not saying that,” said Belichick. “Those guys are very, very good coaches and very proficient and they do a great job. But it’s a little different to see it from the perspective that Brian has seen it from, or Steve. They all help, they’re all valuable and I’m glad we have them.”

Other highlights from Belichick’s Friday press conference:

On Gunner Olszewski’s growth

“Gunner’s improved tremendously. Again, both physically and from a football standpoint. He’s a smart kid, he works extremely hard. He’s tough, he’s very, very competitive. He needs to learn how to do a lot of different things for us and he continues to work on things that will expand his opportunities. So it’ll be interesting to watch him take advantage, or try to take advantage of those opportunities, and watch him play and see how all of that’s coming together. His overall background, knowledge, understanding, being a professional athlete, training, some of his fundamental athletic skills – he’s refined those quite a bit and he’s much, much, much further ahead from where he was last year, similar to other second-year players that we just talked about. He’s certainly in that group.”

On life without Tom Brady

“Well, we’ve had a lot of great, great players over the course of that time. You could have the same conversation about all of them. Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison, Ty Law, Logan Mankins, Rob [Gronkowski]. You could go right down the line. It’s professional football. It’s the National Football League. Every team has changes every year. We have them, so does everybody else and I think right now, everybody’s focused on this year. We’re looking ahead, we’re not looking backwards at anything. We’re trying to look ahead and look at what our opportunities and challenges are that we have coming forward this season, for the 2020 season. So that’s really where our focus is.”

On not designating an official defensive coordinator

“Each one of those situations is different and unique. I’ve been a head coach, I’ve been a position coach, I’ve been a coordinator and I’ve coached on all three units. I would say the focus around here isn’t really on titles as much as it is on getting the job done and doing the things that help the team. Whether it’s titles like general manager and coordinator and a bunch of other stuff like that, I don’t think that those titles necessarily are that important. In some cases there’s reasons for doing it or not doing it, but every situation is different. What’s more important to us is the overall performance of the team and the person’s role in that performance. That’s really where our focus is. Not the titles that go next to everybody’s name and all that. Sometimes those are, I would say, more confusing than anything else. I think each person knows what their assignments are, what they need to do, what they’re responsible for, and that’s to me the most important part of all that. I would say that we aren’t really all the concerned, I’m not all that concerned, about some of the other things that go with that. Teams that have eight assistant head coaches and three coordinators on each side of the ball and different things and so forth – we’re not going to do that.”