Bill Belichick on teaching his players the rules. From his weekly press conference:
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick went deep when asked Tuesday about the process of teaching his players the NFL’s thick rulebook, which is a hot-button topic after Monday Night Football’s missed “illegal bat” penalty call.
When asked if teaching the rulebook is an ongoing process throughout the season, and if he has to teach all new players the rules, Belichick’s first response was, “I think it’s a really good question, but it would entail probably a pretty lengthy answer.”
Belichick then went lengthy in noting “there are so many different levels that that question encompasses.”
Some of the points he made:
Different with rookies. “The first thing we do is teach them the rules in the National Football League and in particular make them aware of the changes between the college rules and the pro rules, which there are a significant number. And we don’t really assume because we have no way of knowing how educated or uneducated they are on the rules, if they even are the same between the two – between college and professional football. So, it starts there.”
Coaches meeting in spring with NFL sets the stage for training camp. “The NFL comes in and they meet with the coaching staff in the spring, which is a very informative meeting, and then they meet with the team in training camp and go through the rules changes and it’s usually done during the time when the officials come to work the few days of training camp that they do for each team. So, that’s also good. It creates a good dialogue between the officials, the players and the coaches, and gives coaches and players an opportunity to ask questions. Sometimes the dialogue goes back and forth – how’s this being coached, how’s this being officiated and so forth. All of that is done with the intention of trying to get everybody on the same page.”
Position coaches devote time in spring and summer to rules. “Each of our position coaches devotes a significant amount of time in the spring and then also in training camp, particularly in individual, one-on-one-type drills where a lot of times there are only two or three guys on the screen instead of all-22 film so you can really get a good, close-up look at a lot of rules like that – the holding and illegal contact and offensive pass interference, defensive pass interference – all those kinds of things. So that’s covered very much on an individual basis, specifically to that position. Obviously, the offensive guard doesn’t have to know everything about pass interference and vice versa, but it’s important for them to know the things in their position and how the game is being officiated.”
Discussion continues in full-team meetings throughout the year. “I talk to the team on a regular basis on situational plays, which involve officiating, timing, utilization of timeouts and so forth and so on, so that’s probably on a regular basis from training camp all the way through the end of the season – call it once a week or something like that – somewhere in that vicinity. Sometimes it’s more than that, but always trying to keep our team aware of situations, and a lot of times we change the situation a little bit just to extend the conversation about a play. ‘So this is what happened, but if something else [happened] or if they hadn’t had timeouts or if the ball was here, or the ball was there,’ just try to understand and comprehend totally what we’re doing from a team standpoint or an individual situation.’ The whole sideline, ball security, whistle, all those kind of ball possession plays, those are very important for everybody to understand and we stress those a lot. Any time the ball is loose, like it was in last night’s [Seahawks-Lions] game, try to make sure everybody understands what they can do, what they can’t do.”
Special teams is a whole different discussion. “Once you get into the kicking game, you can multiply everything that happens on offense and defense exponentially because you not only have the possession plays, but then you have all the plays that happen when the ball is kicked, and those rules sometimes are different than plays of possession like a runner or a receiver or a returner who’s carrying the ball. There is the whole handling of the ball and the kick and did it cross the line of scrimmage and so forth and so on.”
Bottom line, it’s a lot to get one’s arms around. “It’s a lot for the officials to understand, it’s a lot for the coaches to understand, and it’s a lot for the players to understand. But in the end we try to look at the rule book as a useful tool, something that can benefit us if we know what we have to work with, how to make the best of a situation based on the way the rules are written and try to maximize our opportunities there. But that being said, there is still a lot happening in a short amount of time. It’s challenging for all of us – players, coaches and officials. … We could probably talk about that one for weeks.”