No one knows for sure when Bill Belichick will walk away from the New England Patriots, but it goes without saying that he’ll leave a lasting impact on the organization from top to bottom.
Belichick’s work obviously turned the Patriots into one of the NFL’s elite franchises. However, it’s also the work he continues to do day in and day out that also should carry on when he finally decides to call it a career in Foxboro.
However, Patriots director of player personnel Nick Caserio doesn’t expect that to happen any time soon.
“I think Bill enjoys every aspect of the football process, the football operation, and he invests a lot of time, and he genuinely is fully invested,” Caserio said Monday morning on WEEI radio. “Whenever that point in time comes when he doesn’t have that feeling, then ultimately he’ll make that decision to move on. But this isn’t a guy that comes in and he’s trying to just dip his toe in the water. He’s fully invested, he jumps right in.
“And until that dissipates, then I don’t see him walking away anytime soon. … To be around him on a daily basis, to see the amount of energy and focus that he has into football and to this team, it doesn’t appear to be somebody that just says, ‘I’m ready to walk away.’ ”
That interest presumably manifests itself in different ways, and it’s certainly been channeled into hard work. That’s made Belichick a role model for Caserio and likely plenty of others in the Patriots organization.
“Nobody works harder than Coach Belichick,” Caserio said during the WEEI interview. “I’ve been fortunate to be in this organization, this will be my 15th season. Everything that I’ve learned in football I’ve learned from him and watched him. He works so hard.
“He has really a grasp of every aspect of the football operation, whether that’s college scouting, game-planning, contracts, you name it, he’s at the pulp of it. Really, it’s a blend of sort of short-term focus, like, ‘These are the thing we need to do today in order to improve as a football team,’ and then as an extension, once we start preparing for the opponent and for the regular season, ‘All right, these are the things that are most important and most critical for us to win.’ ”
Thumbnail photo via Derick E. Hingle/USA TODAY Sports Images
