Bill Belichick seems to value the three-cone drill when the New England Patriots draft players, but he wouldn’t admit it on Thursday at the NFL Scouting Combine.
Belichick held an impromptu 3 p.m. news conference in Indianapolis that started with a five-minute filibuster and ended with the coach cutting off a reporter and walking off the podium. Belichick’s longest answer was about the three-cone drill, which he said measures “lateral movement and vertical movement.”
Belichick knocked the drill, though, saying that it “isn’t football-specific.
“Once again, I think you always want to keep in mind in those drills, whichever ones of those you’re talking about — ideal conditions, ideal start, nobody lining up across from you, nobody hitting you when you try to release and run ‘em, nobody hitting you at the finish line, nothing to think about, no play, no snap count, no defense, no offensive adjustments, no anything. It’s just a straight time measurement,” Belichick told reporters.
Still, history suggests that the Patriots put a lot of value on the three-cone. The Patriots wound up with three of the top 10 finishers in the drill from the 2013 combine — third-round pick Logan Ryan, fourth-rounder Josh Boyce and undrafted free agent T.J. Moe.
Have a question for Doug Kyed? Send it to him via Twitter at @DougKyedNESN or send it here.
