Ask New England Patriots Head Football Coach, Bill Belichick

Ask New England Patriots Head Football Coach, Bill Belichick

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Dear Bill Belichick

Yesterday I came to the realization that in the world of computer technology, my skills are well behind the times and getting more and more behind every day. My company won’t finance for me to go back to school to upgrade my skills and with a wife and kids, I can’t take on this financial burden; but if I don’t I may find myself out of a job. What should I do?

—Washed Up in Wilmington?

New England Patriots Head Football Coach, Bill Belichick: We'll try to put the finishing touches here on our preparations for the Seahawks. It's been a challenging week with all their outstanding players and the problems they present, a team we're not really that familiar with. Everybody has really been working hard to try to get down and understand exactly what we have to do. Hopefully today will be a good day [and] we can kind of pull things together and be ready to go on Sunday.

Dear Bill Belichick

Lately, when I go for a run I am noticing some mild pain from my left achilles. I can’t take time or training off because I have a marathon in a little over a month. Two weeks out I can begin to taper my miles but I’m afraid my achilles may not last that long. I don’t want to eat the marathon entrance fee because it was $75! What to do?

—Aching in Akron

New England Patriots Head Football Coach, Bill Belichick: Sure, yeah, absolutely. The technique is different. I think competing against that type of player is different. That's one of the good things about going against different players on our team that have different skill sets and also practicing against different teams like New Orleans and Tampa: you get different types of players that eventually over the course of the year, you're going to see somebody that's similar to someone you've seen and that kind of matchup. That type of experience helps. Technique is different and the playing style is different. Certainly it's a lot different for a quarterback throwing over a 5-9 guy, as opposed to throwing over a 6-4 guy. There's a lot more – those guys take up a lot of space. [Brandon] Browner is a very athletic guy. He moves well and covers a lot of ground and he's really long. We've played against those guys before, the [Ryan] McNeils and the [Antonio] Cromarties and Drayton Florence in Buffalo and guys like that: 6-2, 6-3 type corners. They definitely present a problem. [Bobby] Taylor in Philadelphia, those kind of guys, over the course of the years. They're unique. You don't usually see those guys with that kind of length out there. It presents a problem for the receivers and for the quarterback.

Dear Bill Belichick

Taxes are killing me and I want to vote for the right candidate come November. Problem is I can’t make sense of Romney’s tax plan because it seems so vague. Any insight into understanding the Romney/Ryan tax plan?

—Voter from Philadelphia

New England Patriots Head Football Coach, Bill Belichick: Yeah, but it doesn't really matter. It's Seattle; it's what happens this week. Hopefully we can be on the plus side of the turnovers against Seattle but that's hard to do because they do an excellent job of taking it away and they do a great job of protecting it. Their backs really run hard, they get a lot of extra yardage. That's often a time when backs will be less protective of the ball because they're struggling for those extra yards and trying to break tackles and all that but not these guys. They run hard, break tackles, gain extra yards and don't fumble. We'll see how it all plays out Sunday but just because it happened in a couple other games or didn't happen, I don't think that really means anything for Sunday.
Dear Bill Belichick

My mother recently hit a mailbox with her car and I’m worried she might not be suitable for the road. I hate to take away this important aspect of freedom from my mother but I can’t ignore the safety issue for her or for others on the road. I also fear how much the lack of her transportation would burden my family. I am now feeling guilty and afraid. Please help!

—Driving Miss Daisy in Deeborne

New England Patriots Head Football Coach, Bill Belichick: This is a real impressive Seattle team we've been watching here the last couple days. I'd say the things that really jump out are their overall playmaking ability, kicking game – they return kicks, they block them, they cover them, they're leading the league in kickoff returns, leading the league in kickoff coverage. They really have a lot of players that are very impact-type guys in the kicking game with good specialists. Defensively, big in the secondary, probably the biggest secondary in the league, big corners; physical, fast linebackers, real active front, they play a lot of different people up there but they're all playmaking type guys. I've really been impressed watching [Brandon] Mebane and [Red] Bryant and [Bruce] Irvin, of course [Chris] Clemons, [Alan] Branch, [Jason] Jones. They're a real good group and they take the ball away, they do a good job of stripping it out, it's not just sacks. They're talented and we're going to really have to work hard this week to get familiar with their schemes and their players to be able to do a good job against them. We'll have a lot of tough guys to match up against. That's our deal this week.
Dear Bill Belichick

Did you see Tom Brady after that Earl Thomas interception? He cowered like a little girl not only once but twice! What happened to football players?

—Not Exactly George Blanda in Boise

New England Patriots Head Football Coach, Bill Belichick: Tom’s a pussy. Need to play, need to coach better.

Bill Belichick is Head Coach of the National Football League’s New England Patriots and whose weekly column, “Ask New England Patriots Head Football Coach, Bill Belichick” appears in more than 250 newspapers nationwide.