FOXBORO, Mass. — Bill Belichick has a tendency to be a little more talkative on Fridays.
The New England Patriots head coach was asked about a typical Saturday for the team, when it usually holds a walk-through. He then detailed the Patriots’ entire week of preparation for a game.
“We try to take the game, whenever the game is and then work backwards,” Belichick said. “So, the game, the day before the game, two days before the game, three days before the game, four days before the game — wherever you put the game, we try to work backwards so that three days before the game as a player, as a coach, you kind of know where you should be from a preparation standpoint.
“Two days before the game, you’re in a routine, you kind of know where you need to be, these are the things we need to have covered because one day before the game, here are the things we’re going to cover there. You know what I mean? And same thing for the players that in terms of their film study and preparation, they should know physically and from a preparation standpoint — their physical rest, recovery, energy — they should know where they are five, four, three, two, day before the game.
“So, we don’t try to juggle the schedule so one week, two days before the game we’re doing this, and as a player, you’re anticipating one thing and we go out and we have one type of practice, and then next Friday, it’s a different type of practice, and then next Friday, what is it. It’s hard to get into a routine that way, so we try to take the end point and work backwards.”
When the Patriots play a Thursday or Monday night game, Belichick usually puts the days in perspective of where they would fall if the team was playing on Sunday — Thursday is a Wednesday, Saturday is a Friday, etc. The day before a game typically is when the Patriots do some last-minute situational work.
“Well, it’s a review of everything that we’re going to do,” Belichick said. “There are some situations the day before the game that we go over in the meetings or go over on the field in a walk-through that we haven’t covered prior to that week. Now look, you can’t cover every situation in every game that could possibly come up. That would be impossible. But usually over the course of three to four weeks, you can pretty much get them all.”
Thumbnail photo via Kevin Hoffman/USA TODAY Sports Images
