FOXBORO, Mass. — Bill Belichick usually is at his most jovial at the end of the week. The preparation for their opponent is nearly complete, the New England Patriots are 48 hours away from their matchup, and the head coach opens up more than usual to the media.
That certainly was not the case Thursday morning, when he was peppered with questions about Chandler Jones’ hospital visit and seemed to become surlier and surlier as the news conference went along. Bur really, who can blame him? There’s no doubt Belichick was PISSED when he heard news that his star pass rusher was rushed to a hospital for reportedly having a bad reaction to synthetic marijuana.
A surly Belichick said the Patriots’ focus is on the Kansas City Chiefs, which can only mean problems for New England’s divisional-round opponent. The Chiefs are on an 11-game winning streak, which Belichick said earlier in the week makes it difficult game-plan for them, since there’s no recent blueprint to beat them. Belichick wasn’t in the mood for a similar question.
“We prepare the same every week,” Belichick said. “We prepare to face the team that we face. We can’t control what their record was or wasn’t — 0-12, 12-0, 15-0. We don’t have any control over that. All we can control is the team that we play and our performance against that team. So that’s what we try to do. We try to prepare our team to play against our opponent. We don’t worry about their record, what it was or wasn’t. We don’t worry about how many yards they gained or didn’t gain. We try to prepare our team to play the opponent that we’re playing — this week, Kansas City. It’s the same way we do against every other team that we face. It’s really not that hard.”
The Chiefs are coming off a 30-0 win over the Houston Texans, who run a similar offense to the Patriots, on Wild Card Weekend. Seeing how the Chiefs played against the Texans could, in theory, give the Patriots some clues.
“You can learn something from every game,” Belichick said. “I mean every game we see on them, you learn something. But our game will be different. We’ll have to play our game the way our game plays. Part of the preparation is watching them play everybody, especially the last one. There is definitely a benefit from it, but our game is going to be our game, so that’s what it is.”
Many have wondered if Jones’ situation will cause a distraction with the Patriots. With Belichick at the helm, it seems highly unlikely.
Thumbnail photo via Kevin Jairaj/USA TODAY Sports Images
