Why is Bill Belichick smiling so much? Here's my theory.
Just a hunch, based on my experiences down in Foxboro.
I’ve covered a smattering of Bill Belichick press conferences over my career. If there’s one piece of advice I’d give, it’s to pay attention to his mood on Thursdays and/or Fridays.
If he’s in the Belichickian mood he’s famous for — curt, smart-assed, wielding the sword of brevity like a stinger missile — that usually means we should expect a rock fight on Sunday.
But if he’s in a giddy mood; if he’s cracking jokes; taking innocuous questions about something niche like coffin corner punts, and turning them into 10-minute oral histories; that’s usually an indication he’s got the opposing team figured out. Expect fireworks on Sunday.1
Belichick is way too giddy lately. Two weeks ago, he wished Steve Burton a happy birthday.
After last week’s game against Carolina, he kept smiling after every question…
…all the while not saying a whole heck of a lot, especially when asked about who’s calling plays.
No coach in the history of professional football has ever worked the media better than Belichick. He may be on the back nine of his career, but I refuse to believe this is just a guy loosening up as the clubhouse comes into view. The way he’s carrying himself in the preseason is intentional. And as usual, he’s making us all read between the lines.
Here’s what I think is going on:
1. He made up his mind on the playcalling months ago
Always expect the unexpected with Belichick — or you’ll never find it. He is, as the great Charles Pierce once put it, “football’s last real anarchist.”
This year, Belichick is doing something wild. He’s entering the season with no officially-named offensive or defensive coordinators. That means we have no idea who’s going to be calling the plays this season.
He didn’t name a defensive coordinator last season, either, leaving us to speculate whether the one calling plays was Jerod Mayo, Bill’s son Steve, or even Bill himself. We’re now doing the same on offense, presuming it’s either Matt Patricia or Joe Judge, two unusual suspects when considering their backgrounds. Excluding their stints as head coaches, Judge has spent his entire career coaching either special teams or defense, while Patricia hasn’t coached offense in almost 20 years.
The media have been trying to nail this down once and for all, to no avail. With every question about who’s calling what, who’s holding the call sheet during which series, he can’t help but smile. It makes me wonder if we’ve got it all wrong, if we’re making too many assumptions about this “process” he speaks of, if there’s something missing from the equation that we’re never going to figure out.
2. There’s progress being made, but we’re only seeing the sloppy
Much has been made of the Patriots’ growing pains trying to install an offense similar to what Kyle Shanahan’s running with the 49ers. At times reports from practice have been brutal, painting a picture of an offense frustrated by glacial progress.
When you hear someone say “Kyle Shanahan offense”, what they’re referring to is a system that expands on some schematic ideas Matt Canada brought to vogue in the college game over the last decade. It’s generally defined by three things:
Zone and pin-and-pull blocking concepts
Emphasis on play action in the passing game
Using multiple motions to “hide” personnel in plain sight
That last one is key. Personnel groupings are one of the main arteries that any scouting report flows through. And so when you’re constantly shifting multiple players around the perimeter and backfield, that can screw with the analysts2. Shanahan’s offense applies this liberally, especially with fullback Kyle Juszczyk, tight end George Kittle and “wide back” Deebo Samuel.
This system has its critics. Convention in the NFL has long held that you pass to set up the run, not vice-versa like at lower levels of the game. And having a player who lines up all over the field sometimes makes you easier to scout, since playcalling tendencies may change drastically from spot to spot.
To that, I say two things3:
If you can make 3rd and 3 (or even 3rd and 4) a par down instead of a passing down, that’s huge in today’s pass-happy NFL.
The record shows that when Samuel gets in the neighborhood of 8-10 carries a game, or more, the 49ers usually win.
The Patriots have at least some of the personnel in place to try and make this work. Tight end Devin Asiasi has experience with the Shanahan/Canada concepts from his time playing for Chip Kelly at UCLA. Jonnu Smith wasn’t good for much last season outside of a once-a-game tight end sweep from the wingback position, which makes it natural to wonder if he could be used more on the perimeter in this system.
Most importantly, they may have their “wide back” in Ty Montgomery, who famously converted from wide receiver to the backfield in 2016, when the Green Bay Packers were literally out of healthy tailbacks, and has stuck around the NFL in a hybrid role.
And that’s to say nothing of speed demons like receivers DeVante Parker and Nelson Agholar, or running backs Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson, who all seem like good scheme fits.
I’m willing to bet behind closed doors, away from the viewing public, is where the really complicated stuff is happening. The fact that they seem to be stuck in first gear in front of the Tom E. Curran’s and Greg A. Bedard’s of the world only makes Belichick giddy.
My two favorite “Giddy Belichick Friday” examples:
1. AFC Divisional Round, Jan. 2012. The height of “Tebowmania”. The way Belichick hyped up Tim Tebow, you woulda thought they were up against the greatest single wing back since Jim Thorpe and the Pats were just hoping not to get blown out. You know how this ended. Tebow was literally never the same again.
2. 2016, heaping such an avalanche of praise on LA Rams punter Johnny Hekker that it instantly went viral. This was the pre-McVay years, when their punter actually was their best player. He called Hekker “a weapon” and maybe the best to ever play the position. It might be the longest answer he’s ever given up at the podium. The Pats sleepwalked their way to a 26-10 win that felt like it was 46-10.
This is why it’s important to chart “alt personnel”, or personnel groupings by what they would be if everybody lined up at their natural position. The legendary Chris Vasseur, a.k.a., “Coach Vass”, taught me this once.
There’s also a shared belief among some coaches that as defenses get faster, but lighter, to keep up with today’s pass-happy offenses, there’s an opportunity for teams to swing the pendulum back the other way and outweigh teams at the point of attack. In other words, a return of the run. Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles has been saying this since his days running the Jets.