Bill Belichick explains what goes into position changes for assistant coaches
Bill Belichick has a long history of moving assistant coaches to different positions from season to season.
Former star receiver Troy Brown began his coaching career last season to help with the wide outs, and now he’s with the running backs. Cole Popovich helped out with the running backs last season and now he’s the co-offensive line coach alongside Carmen Bricillo.
These are two minor examples of coaching changes that happen yearly in the New England Patriots organization. It’s a smart move that familiarizes coaches with each position and the intricate details that each entails.
Belichick joined a Zoom call on Friday morning and explained these position changes in much further detail.
“I would say every situation is a little bit different, but also coaches – they specialize or focus on a certain position, their area of responsibility, but they’re also aware of other things, whether it’s on the other side of the ball at the complementary positions, like wide receivers and defensive backs type of thing, or whether it’s adjacent positions,” Belichick said. “So, that’s linebackers to D-line, that type of thing. I think the move isn’t maybe quite as monumental as what you think it is. It’s hard to coach one position without knowing what the guys beside you are doing, or if you’re a back, not knowing what the line is doing in front of you or not knowing what the guys across the ball are doing.”
I think there’s certainly a build-up of knowledge there, and in some cases, it brings a little bit of a different perspective than if you’ve just coached only that one spot. The opportunity to coach something else and see what’s going on around it or how those units work together or work against each other, depending on if it’s the opposite side of the ball, that can be valuable, too. So, ultimately, it’s the staff on either side of the ball or special teams meshing together and making sure the communication, the assignments and all that are consistent so the players are getting the same thing and it all fits together.”
Belichick’s method has proved useful and it’s helped guys like Brian Flores and Joe Judge land head coaching jobs.
“But specifically, each person is responsible for a certain area, but certainly the more that they can know, understand and even be able to coach other positions is valuable, too,” Belichick continued. “When we do group drills together – like putting the line and linebackers together, or the linebackers and defensive backs together, or the tight ends and tackles together, or the running backs and the line together – then the more that those coaches can know what’s going on with those adjacent or complementary positions, then the more effective they can coach and the better the drills and the information is to the players.”
This strategy of putting his coaches in the right positions and allowing them to learn every aspect of the game could be easily applicable to everyday employees. Learning every aspect of the job a person has will quickly lead to promotions and a further understanding of how things operate.
