Bill Belichick on the Patriots’ early-season expectations, Tyreek Hill, and an injury update
"We're not going out there trying to have a science lab experiment.
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick joined WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” on Tuesday morning for his weekly interview.
New England will face the Dolphins in Miami on Sept. 11 (1 p.m.) for the season opener.
Belichick provided a general update on injuries, noting that all players currently on the team’s active roster — including running back Ty Montgomery, who exited the final preseason game with an injury — “have a shot” to play against the Dolphins.
“We’ll just have to take it day-by-day on everybody and see where they’re at,” said Belichick. “Hopefully they’ll all make it. I think they have a shot. If they didn’t, like Tyquan [Thornton] didn’t, we put him on [injured reserve], but everybody else should have a shot so we’ll just see where they get to.”
Here are a few other takeaways from the interview:
Belichick’s expectations for the start of the season
As he said in the previous week’s interview with WEEI, Belichick has maintained that he won’t know his team’s identity — its strengths and weaknesses — until after “five, six weeks of the regular season.”
But asked how important it will be to balance continued roster assessment with a need to get off to a good start, Belichick emphasized the latter (while acknowledging the inevitability of the former).
“We’re not going out there trying to have a science lab experiment,” he explained. “We’re trying to go out there and win games. I think as you play games and compete against other teams, you see maybe where your strengths are, and where teams are trying to attack you and how you’re holding up in those areas.
“We’re trying to go out there and be as competitive as we can,” added Belichick, “but at the same time we’re trying to take a close look at what’s happening and how it’s all playing out.”
His general impression of the Dolphins
While Belichick didn’t give away specific details about the Patriots’ Week 1 game-plan (or his scouting assessment of the Dolphins), he did share some general views of the Miami offense.
Though the Dolphins added wide receiver Tyreek Hill in the offseason, Belichick remains cognizant of the rest of the players on the field.
“We all know that Hill is a very explosive player, can score from anywhere on the field and has game-breaking speed that we see from time to time, but it’s relatively rare,” said Belichick. “So we’ll have to certainly be aware of him, but they have other good players on that team.
“Good receivers, good quarterback, tight end, and a big emphasis on the running game with their offensive line,” Belichick pointed out. “So it’s not just one guy to stop, we’ll have to be competitive all the way across the board and play good team defense.”
New England lost twice to Miami in 2021, with home and away defeats bookending the regular season.
What he learned from early coaching roles
Belichick has worked in the NFL for nearly half a century. At the start of his legendary career, he worked as an assistant coach in a variety of roles.
What exactly did Belichick learn about offenses from his time working as a defensive assistant?
“I’m not sure. That’s a good question. I think you learn something every year,” Belichick began. “I was very fortunate to spend my first four years in the league with three different teams, four different head coaches. Spent two years on offense, two years on defense, and all four years involved in the kicking game.”
In his early years in the NFL, Belichick worked for the Colts, Lions, and Broncos. Eventually, he ended up in New York with the Giants, where he worked as a defensive and special teams assistant for six seasons before becoming the defensive coordinator under Bill Parcells.
Belichick credited his well-rounded early football education with teaching him about the interdependence of offense, defense, and special teams.
“That was a good introduction for me to the different phases of the game and how they become intermingled and situationally play off of each other and are integrated with each other through the course of a game and through preparations in the course of a season,” he said. “Those were all very valuable experiences the first four years in the league and I think each year after that at the Giants — which started off on special teams and ended up more on defense — they all build on one another.”
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